The relationship between neighbourhood-level and family-level factors and sleep problems among children and youth

There is little research on the effects of neighbourhood factors on child sleep outcomes. No study to date has investigated the interactive effects of neighbourhood and family socio-economic characteristics (SECs) on child sleep outcomes. This study aimed to fill this gap. Secondary data analyses were completed on two samples (children and youth) from the 2014 Ontario Child Health Study, a cross-sectional, province-wide sample of 10,802 children aged 4 to 17. Multi-level modeling was used to assess the relationship between child- (e.g., age), family- (e.g., negative parenting) and neighbourhood-level factors and their relationship to sleep outcome variables: problems falling asleep, problems staying asleep, weekday sleep duration and weekend sleep duration. The interactive effects of family and neighbourhood poverty significantly predicted one sleep outcome variable (child weekend sleep duration) in the current study. Different levels of SECs may interact to influence child sleep and relate to sleep outcomes differentially across development