Cross-sectional association between outdoor artificial light at night and sleep duration in middle-to-older aged adults: The NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study

Qian Xiao; Gilbert Gee; Rena R Jones; Peng Jia; Peter James; Lauren Hale

doi:10.1016/j.envres.2019.108823

Cross-sectional association between outdoor artificial light at night and sleep duration in middle-to-older aged adults: The NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study

Environ Res. 2020 Jan:180:108823. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2019.108823. Epub 2019 Oct 12.

Authors

Qian Xiao¹, Gilbert Gee², Rena R Jones³, Peng Jia⁴, Peter James⁵, Lauren Hale⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Health and Human Physiology, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA; Department of Epidemiology, College of Public Health, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA. Electronic address: qian-xiao@uiowa.edu.
² Department of Community Health Sciences, Fielding School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
³ Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, MD, USA.
⁴ Department of Earth Observation Science, Faculty of Geo-information Science and Earth Observation, University of Twente, Netherlands.
⁵ Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, Boston, MA, USA.
⁶ Program in Public Health, Department of Family, Population, and Preventive Medicine, Stony Brook Medicine, Stony Brook, NY, USA.

Abstract

Introduction: Artificial light at night (ALAN) can disrupt circadian rhythms and cause sleep disturbances. Several previous epidemiological studies have reported an association between higher levels of outdoor ALAN and shorter sleep duration. However, it remains unclear how this association may differ by individual- and neighborhood-level socioeconomic status, and whether ALAN may also be associated with longer sleep duration.

Methods: We assessed the cross-sectional relationship between outdoor ALAN and self-reported sleep duration in 333,365 middle- to older-aged men and women in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study. Study participants reported baseline addresses, which were geocoded and linked with outdoor ALAN exposure measured by satellite imagery data obtained from the U.S. Defense Meteorological Satellite Program's Operational Linescan System. We used multinomial logistic regression to estimate the multinomial odds ratio (MOR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for the likelihood of reporting very short (<5 h), short (<7 h) and long (≥9 h) sleep relative to reporting 7-8 h of sleep across quintiles of LAN. We also conducted subgroup analyses by individual-level education and census tract-level poverty levels.

Results: We found that higher levels of ALAN were associated with both very short and short sleep. When compared to the lowest quintile, the highest quintile of ALAN was associated with 16% and 25% increases in the likelihood of reporting short sleep in women (MOR_{Q1 vs Q5}, (95% CI), 1.16 (1.10, 1.22)) and men (1.25 (1.19, 1.31)), respectively. Moreover, we found that higher ALAN was associated with a decrease in the likelihood of reporting long sleep in men (0.79 (0.71, 0.89)). We also found that the associations between ALAN and short sleep were larger in neighborhoods with higher levels of poverty.

Conclusions: The burden of short sleep may be higher among residents in areas with higher levels of outdoor LAN, and this association is likely stronger in poorer neighborhoods. Future studies should investigate the potential benefits of reducing light intensity in high ALAN areas in improve sleep health.

Keywords: Artificial light at night; Circadian disruption; Neighborhood; Sleep; Socioeconomic disadvantage.

Publication types

Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

Adult
Aged
Circadian Rhythm
Cross-Sectional Studies
Diet
Female
Humans
Light
Lighting*
Male
Middle Aged
Sleep*

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

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