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Abstract Study Objective We investigated sleep disparities and academic achievement in college. Methods Participants were 6,002 first-year college students attending a midsize private university in the southern United States [62.0% female, 18.8% first-generation, 37.4% Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC) students]. During the first 3–5 weeks of college, students reported their typical weekday sleep duration, which we classified as short sleep (<7 hours), normal sleep (7–9 hours), or long sleep (>9 hours). Results The odds for short sleep were significantly greater in BIPOC students (95% CI: 1.34–1.66) and female students (95% CI: 1.09–1.35), and the odds for long sleep were greater in BIPOC students (95% CI: 1.38–3.08) and first-generation students (95% CI: 1.04–2.53). In adjusted models, financial burden, employment, stress, STEM academic major, student athlete status, and younger age explained unique variance in sleep duration, fully mediating disparities for females and first-generation students (but only partially mediating disparities for BIPOC students). Short and long sleep predicted worse GPA across students’ first year in college, even after controlling for high school academic index, demographics, and psychosocial variables. Conclusions Higher education should address sleep health early in college to help remove barriers to success and reduce disparities.
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This content will become publicly available on October 1, 2026
Sleep program efficacy across gender and racial/ethnic groups: A content review and meta-analysis
Female and under-represented minority students (URMs) in higher education disproportionately experience sleep disturbances. Incorporating sleep education and other psychological interventions (e.g., cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia; CBT-I) into college settings might provide a scalable solution, but it is unknown whether such psychoeducational interventions produce equivalent outcomes across groups. We addressed this question with two approaches. First, we identified 36 US-based studies that had student participants and a psychoeducational sleep intervention. Fifteen authors shared data on sleep knowledge, quality, and/or duration separated by gender and URM groups (N = 599). Hedges’ g was computed for each group within each study. Second, we systematically reviewed the content of 21 available programs. We found that, relative to national collegiate data (59.4 % female, 41.5 % URM), females were over-represented (63.4 %) and URM groups were under-represented (23.7 %) in these studies. Interventions improved sleep knowledge (g = 0.69, p<.001) and sleep quality (g = 0.25, p<.001), but not sleep duration (g = 0.13, p = .18). Effect sizes were similar in males, females, URM students, and non-URM students. There were no studies that incorporated financial, social, or neighborhood-level barriers to sleep in students. Future interventions in student groups might be improved by combining individualized, CBT-I-based education while concomitantly addressing environmental/institutional barriers to sleep.
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- PAR ID:
- 10691890
- Publisher / Repository:
- Elsevier
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Sleep Medicine Reviews
- Volume:
- 83
- Issue:
- C
- ISSN:
- 1087-0792
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 102135
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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