Cross-sectional association between neighborhood socioeconomic status and sleep duration among Black and white men and women: The Southern Community Cohort Study

Objective: To examine the association of neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES) with sleep duration among a large cohort of Black and white men and women in the United States. Methods: We used data from the Southern Community Cohort Study (SCCS, N = 75,248). Neighborhood SES was based on census data and sleep duration was measured by self-report. Multinomial logistic regression analysis was performed to assess the association between neighborhood SES and short (<7 hours) and long (≥9 hours) sleep in the overall sample and according to race–sex subgroups. Results: In the total sample, when compared with the highest quintile of neighborhood SES, the lowest quintile was associated with higher odds of both short (adjusted OR_{Q5 vs. Q1} [95% CI], 1.10 [1.03, 1.17]) and long sleep (1.37 [1.24, 1.52]). In race–sex specific analysis, the association between lower neighborhood SES and short sleep was only observed among white women (1.21 [1.05, 1.40]), but not in other subgroups. On the other hand, the association between lower neighborhood SES and long sleep duration was primarily observed among Black women (1.31 [1.06, 1.60]). Conclusions: The association between neighborhood SES and sleep duration varied among race-and-sex subgroups. These findings provide new evidence on the importance of considering individual sociodemographic characteristics in understanding the potential effects of neighborhood socioeconomic context on sleep health.