Missed sleep and asthma morbidity in urban children.
BACKGROUND
Children living in urban environments have many risk factors for disrupted sleep, including environmental disturbances, stressors related to ethnic minority status, and higher rates of stress and anxiety. Asthma can further disrupt sleep in children, but little research has examined the effects of missed sleep on asthma morbidity.


OBJECTIVE
To examine the associations among missed sleep, asthma-related quality of life (QoL), and indicators of asthma morbidity in urban children with asthma from Latino, African American, and non-Latino white backgrounds. Given the importance of anxiety as a trigger for asthma symptoms and the link between anxiety and disrupted sleep, the associations among anxiety, asthma morbidity indicators, and missed sleep were also tested.


METHODS
Parents of 147 children ages 6 to 13 years completed measures of asthma morbidity and missed sleep, parental QoL, and child behavior.


RESULTS
Higher reports of missed sleep were related to more frequent school absences, more activity limitations, and lower QoL across the sample. The associations between missed sleep and asthma morbidity were stronger for Latino children compared with non-Latino white and African American children. For children with higher anxiety, the associations between missed sleep and asthma morbidity were stronger than for children with lower anxiety.


CONCLUSIONS
Results offer preliminary support for missed sleep as a contributor to daily functioning of children with asthma in urban neighborhoods. Missed sleep may be more relevant to Latino families. Furthermore, anxiety may serve as a link between sleep and asthma morbidity because higher anxiety may exacerbate the effects of disrupted sleep on asthma.
Bradley/Hasbro Children's Research Center, Alpert Medical School, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA.
Lauren C
LC
Daniel
Julie
J
Boergers
Sheryl J
SJ
Kopel
Daphne
D
Koinis-Mitchell
D000293:Adolescent; D001741:Black or African American; D001007:Anxiety / Q000150:complications / Q000453:epidemiology; D001249:Asthma / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology; D002648:Child; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D006630:Hispanic or Latino; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009017:Morbidity; D010290:Parents; D011788:Quality of Life; D012307:Risk Factors; D012892:Sleep Deprivation / Q000150:complications / Q000453:epidemiology*; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014505:Urban Population; D044465:White People