Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the roles of parenting and adolescent characteristics during ages 13 to 16 in connecting family socioeconomic status (SES) during adolescence with adult sleep in Black and White men. DESIGN: Longitudinal school-based community study beginning in 1987-1988 when participants were enrolled in the first or seventh grade. SETTING: Pittsburgh, PA. PARTICIPANTS: 291 men (54.4% Black, mean age = 33, SD = 2.5) participated in 2012-2014 in a week-long study of sleep measured by actigraphy and diary. MEASURES: In adolescence (ages 13-16), measures of family SES based on occupation, education, income and public assistance; parenting based on monitoring, positive expectations for future, warm parent-child relationship, and communication; and adolescent characteristics based on anxiety, hyperactivity/impulsivity, and peer rejection. In adulthood, participant SES, minutes awake after sleep onset (WASO), duration, and diary-assessed sleep quality. RESULTS: Structural equation modeling confirmed significant indirect pathways: (1) low family SES in adolescence to negative parenting to low adult SES to greater WASO; (2) low family SES in adolescence to adolescent characteristics to low adult SES to greater WASO; (3) Black race to low family SES in adolescence to negative parenting to low adult SES to greater WASO; and (4) Black race to low family SES in adolescence to adolescent characteristics to adult SES to greater WASO. Similar models for duration and quality were not confirmed. CONCLUSIONS: Parenting and adolescent characteristics may have an indirect association with adult sleep continuity. Parenting and mental health interventions in adolescence may improve adult sleep.