The relationship between socio-demographic variables and sleep problems

The link between poor health outcomes and socio-economic status(SES) has long been recognized but there is little data about sleep quality and SES. This study investigated relationships between subjective sleep complaints (7 questions) and key SES variables among a representative sample of young women (N = 14947) who completed the Australian Longitudinal Study ofWomen’s Health, Third Survey for YoungWomen(2003). Chi-square analyses assessed overall relationships between variables and relative risk analyses investigated the risk of sleep problems with differing income and occupational levels, marital status, ethnicity, number of children and living areas. Chi square results demonstrated that there were significant (p < 0.05) associations between all selfreported sleep problems and geographical area, income, marital status, motherhood, and being of Aboriginal descent, and all but one of the\ud associations between occupation and investigated sleep problems ..