A study reveals that racial and ethnic minority children, especially Black children, are more likely to suffer from long-term insomnia, starting in childhood and continuing into young adulthood. This persistent condition, linked to several health problems, underscores the importance of early identification and intervention to mitigate future health risks.
Many individuals have faced a night or two of sleeplessness, spending hours restless and unable to either drift off to sleep or remain asleep. However, for a number of people, issues with sleep aren’t merely one-off occurrences; these problems can start as early as childhood.researchers, found that children and teens from racial and ethnic minority groups are disproportionately affected by persistent insomnia symptoms that begin in childhood and continue through young adulthood.
Poor sleep is linked to cardiometabolic disease, depression, and anxiety, among other concerns. Yet, when it comes to sleep and children, insomnia symptoms aren’t always taken seriously. Fernandez-Mendoza said that most people assume that difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep is a phase that kids will outgrow.
The study is one of the first to look at how childhood insomnia symptoms evolve over the long term and investigate how the trajectory of insomnia differs between racial and ethnic groups, addressing a gap in the research literature, Fernandez-Mendoza said. The researchers found that 23.3% of participants had persistent insomnia symptoms, with symptoms present at all three-time points, and 16.8% developed insomnia symptoms in young adulthood.