Date of Award:

5-2018

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Sociology and Anthropology

Department name when degree awarded

Sociology

Committee Chair(s)

Eric Reither

Committee

Eric Reither

Committee

Gabriele Ciciurkaite

Committee

Jamison Fargo

Abstract

Childhood is one of the most important stages for physical and cognitive growth during the life course. For young children, sleep is one of the major contributors to healthy development; poor sleep quality and short sleep duration can detrimentally affect developmental progress. In addition to physiological contributors to poor sleep, social factors may affect young children’s sleep. Prior findings suggest that demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, such as race and parent’s educational attainment, may contribute to sleep health for children. Furthermore, limited prior research suggests that neighborhood attributes may affect sleep for both children and adults alike. To my knowledge, no study exists that examines neighborhood effects and sleep for children under the age of six. Therefore, my investigation examines the effect of neighborhood disadvantage on the bedtimes of kindergarten-aged children, a proxy for sleep health.

In order to examine the effects of neighborhood disadvantage on sleep, this study utilizes multilevel statistical methods to determine the influence of both individual- and neighborhood-level characteristics. The results from these analyses indicate that while individual-level demographic and socioeconomic characteristics contribute explain more variance in bedtimes than neighborhood-level attributes, neighborhoods significantly affect bedtimes—especially racial composition and overall levels of educational attainment. These findings suggest the need for further research on the effects of neighborhoods on sleep and ultimately health outcomes.

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