Sleep Duration Among US Adolescents, 1991-2023.

Abstract

We examined trends in adolescent sleep across recent decades in the United States. Data were drawn from a nationally representative study, Monitoring the Future, measurement years 1991-2023, which represented cohorts of adolescents born from approximately 1972 to 2011 (n = 401 160). Outcomes were 2 self-reported survey items, one addressing sleep duration and another on subjective sleep sufficiency. Age-period-cohort models were estimated and sociodemographic differences in trends were examined. Adolescent sleep duration declined with increasing age during every period. Adolescents at every age in the last 10 years were more likely to report inadequate sleep duration compared with teens at those same ages in earlier decades. The period 2021-2023 had the lowest prevalences of getting 7 or more hours of sleep at every age (ranging from 37.2% at age 12 or 13 to 22.3% at 18 or 19). Disparities in sleep duration between non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic/Latino adolescents and their white peers, and between teens whose parents were more vs less educated, emerged and/or grew steadily over time. For instance, Black and white adolescents in 1991-1995 were equally likely to report 7 or more hours of sleep per night (odds ratio [OR] = 0.99 [0.92, 1.07]), but by 2023, Black teens were less likely to report this (OR = 0.79 [0.67, 0.93]). For decades, adolescents' sleep had been eroding. It is concerning that youth from marginalized sociodemographic groups appear to be at an even greater risk for profoundly short sleep, given that sleep is a resource that confers advantages for health and development.