The need to promote sleep health in public health agendas across the globe

Abstract

Healthy sleep is essential for physical and mental health, and social wellbeing; however, across the globe, and particularly in developing countries, national public health agendas rarely consider sleep health. Sleep should be promoted as an essential pillar of health, equivalent to nutrition and physical activity. To improve sleep health across the globe, a focus on education and awareness, research, and targeted public health policies are needed. We recommend developing sleep health educational programmes and awareness campaigns; increasing, standardising, and centralising data on sleep quantity and quality in every country across the globe; and developing and implementing sleep health policies across sectors of society. Efforts are needed to ensure equity and inclusivity for all people, particularly those who are most socially and economically vulnerable, and historically excluded.

Figure:. Paucity of sleep duration data across the globe

We did a literature search to determine which countries have data on sleep duration. Out of 194 WHO state members, 43 (22%) had general (blue) population data on sleep duration, 69 (36%) had sleep duration data in at least one specific (green) population (eg, lorry drivers or athletes), and the remaining 82 (42%) had no (red) sleep duration data. The disconcerting absence of general population sleep data in 78% of countries suggests that developing countries are unlikely to have sleep health on their national health agenda, despite being disproportionately affected by adverse environmental and social determinants of sleep health. This paucity of global data on sleep duration should serve as a wakeup call to national and international health organisations as such data are urgently needed to inform sleep health policies and practices that will not only improve population health but, possibly, impact health inequities. See appendix pp 4–28 for raw data.