1055 A Preliminary Validation Study of a Composite Sleep Health Index: Associations with Psychological Distress, Obesity, and Physical Functioning

Individual sleep dimensions, such as sleep duration or quality, have been linked to numerous physical and mental health conditions. However, scant research has examined how sleep dimensions may act independently, additively, or synergistically to influence health. The current study investigates associations of five sleep dimensions (duration, satisfaction, efficiency, timing, and regularity), independently and as part of a composite sleep health index, with psychological distress, body mass index, and physical functioning in a high-risk sample of African American adults. We constructed a composite Sleep Health (SH) score by summing a set of binary scores, representing “better” versus “worse” ranges of the following sleep measures: actigraphy-assessed sleep timing, duration, regularity, and efficiency and self-reported sleep quality. Outcomes included self-reported psychological distress, physical functioning and measured BMI. Participants included 740 low-income African Americans (78% female). We found statistically significant associations between the SH score as well as specific combinations of sleep dimensions and psychological distress (p’s<.05). Specifically, each one-unit increase on the SH score was associated with 0.58-unit lower psychological distress score. Participants with at least two or three sleep dimensions in the better range, versus fewer, had 1.42-unit and 1.25-unit lower psychological distress scores, respectively. Neither the individual sleep dimensions, nor the combinations of sleep dimensions, were associated with BMI or physical functioning in this high-risk sample. Assessing multiple sleep dimensions may provide a more comprehensive understanding of associations of sleep with psychological distress than assessing any single sleep dimension. Although sleep was unrelated to BMI and physical functioning in the current sample, analyses should be replicated in other populations to determine generalizability. Funding was provided by the National Heart Lung Blood Institute (R01 HL122460) and the National Cancer Institute (R01CA164137).