Overview
- The OHSU-led analysis used CDC survey data from 2019–2025 across more than 3,000 counties, defining sufficient sleep as at least seven hours per night.
- Counties reporting more short sleepers consistently showed lower life expectancy across most states and years, even during the pandemic period.
- Statistical models accounted for other mortality-related behaviors and demographics, yet sleep scarcity outperformed diet, physical inactivity, and social isolation as a predictor, second only to smoking.
- The authors caution that findings are observational and based on self-reported sleep, so causation is unproven and unmeasured factors may contribute.
- Graduate student researchers conducted much of the work with partial NHLBI/NIH funding, and controlled laboratory and community studies are underway to probe mechanisms and causality.