This should not come as much of a surprise, but health care made the top-5 list of occupations whose workers are getting too little sleep, according to a study by The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) researchers.
The researchers analyzed data from 179,621 working adults who responded to the 2013 or 2014 Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System annual surveys. Among the 22 major occupation groups, health care support (40.1%) and health care practitioners and technical (40.0%) ranked second and third in “short sleep duration,” after production (42.9%). Among the occupational subgroups, nursing, psychiatric, and home health aides had a high adjusted prevalence of short sleep duration.
Workers in occupations where alternative shiftwork is common were more likely to have a higher adjusted prevalence of short sleep duration. More than 35% of health care practitioners work shifts. Workers in other occupation groups such as teachers, farmers, or pilots, were more likely to report getting enough sleep.
Time at work also is on the rise in the US where workers have the longest annual working hours among workers in all wealthy industrialized countries, which reduces the time available for sleep, NIOSH says. The researchers point out that lack of sleep has been linked to negative health outcomes including cardiovascular disease, obesity, and depression, as well as safety issues related to drowsy driving and injuries.
To help people get more sleep or improve the quality of the sleep they get, NIOSH offers training and resources about sleep, shiftwork, and fatigue for a variety of audiences including health care workers and emergency responders. Free downloadable materials are available at www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/workschedules/education.html.