Implications of Sleep Health Policy: Daylight Saving and School Start Times

Abstract

Two proposed public policies, ending seasonal clock change with a transition to permanent Standard Time and moving middle school and high school start times later, are population-based initiatives to improve sleep health. Daylight Saving Time and early school start times are associated with reduced sleep duration and increased circadian misalignment, the effects of which impact not only long-term health outcomes including obesity, cerebrovascular and cardiovascular disease, and cancer, but also mental health, academics, workforce productivity, and safety outcomes. This article highlights studies that led to the endorsement of these public policies by multiple scientific and medical organizations. Neurologists should advocate at the state and federal levels and educate the population about the importance of sleep health.

Continuum 2024 and Beyond

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Multimodal assessment of circadian sleep health in predicting mental health outcomes in adolescents

“…Using this estimate of SJL, we then dichotomized the sample into two groups: minimal social jetlag (≤1 hour) or presence of social jet lag (>1 h). This cutoff was selected as a shift in as little as 1 h in sleep patterns (as in the case of daylight savings time) can have a negative impact on youth health (Johnson and Malow, 2023).…”