Trouble paying rent, being forced to move associated with lower levels of sleep

While we all know how stress affects our sleeping pattern, a new study has found that people who are unable to pay their rent or are being forced to move out may sleep less than their peers who don't have such problems.

The study, which is the first to analyse the relationship between housing insecurity and sleep outcomes, was published online by the journal 'Sleep'.

According to the findings of the new RAND Corporation study, people who are unable to make their rent or mortgage payments sleep less than their peers who don't have such issues, and those who are forced to move because of financial problems sleep even less.

The study followed 1,046 people receiving welfare in California over several years. The study found that people who were unable to make a rent or mortgage payment slept on average 22 fewer minutes a night than their peers who were able to make their rent or mortgage payments.

People who were forced to move out because they could not make their rent or mortgage payments slept on average 32 fewer minutes a night than their peers who were not forced to move.

"This is the first study that demonstrates that housing insecurity represents a distinct impediment to healthy sleep duration and quality," said Robert Bozick, the study's lead author and an adjunct researcher at RAND, a nonprofit research orgsation.

"The stability and condition of one's home environment are critically important for health and well-being," added Bozick.

The study analysed information from the California Socioeconomic Survey, a longitudinal study conducted by RAND of participants in the state's welfare program, which is called CalWORKs.

The survey follows a random sample of 1,657 adults drawn from a population of 15,600 economically disadvantaged families who first enrolled in CalWORKs between 2011 and 2014 in one of six diverse counties: Alameda, Fresno, Los Angeles, Riverside, Sacramento, and Stslaus.

The new RAND study used information from a sample of 1,046 participants who participated in surveys during 2015-16 and 2017-18, and who answered questions about sleep duration, sleep quality, and housing insecurity.

The reductions in sleep quality detailed by the study were small to moderate by conventional standards, but researchers noted that sleep is cumulative such that slight reductions accrue over time. This accumulation in turn can create more pronounced sleep deficits.

"Considering the downstream health implications of housing insecurity is particularly timely given the economic fall-out from the coronavirus pandemic," said Bozick, who is a senior fellow at the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University.

"National surveys show many Americans are having trouble making their housing payments, which may lead to greater reliance on social safety net programs like welfare in the near future," concluded Bozick.

( With inputs from ANI )