Sleep, Culture and Health: Reflections on the Other Third of Life

Details

• Personal Author:
  Henry D ; Knutson KL ; Orzech KM
• Description:
  In 2010, the editors of this special issue organized an international panel of scholars from the USA, Great Britain, and Australia at the American Anthropological Association meetings in New Orleans, LA, to bring attention to the growing social science contributions to the study of sleep and health. That session, and ensuing discussions, clarified four central themes shared by our research: 1) The critical relevance of socioeconomic circumstances and cultural norms affecting sleep and health, 2) The interplay of biology, cultural meaning, gender, and medicalization on the interpretation and self-management of disordered sleep, 3) The roles that politics and consumers play in influencing and sometimes compromising health policy concerning infant and child sleep, and 4) The evolving social norms and messages that influence how sleep and sleep problems are perceived across the life cycle. As the papers in this special issue show, social scientists, particularly those from biological anthropology, medical anthropology, and sociology offer important insights into the social, cultural, and political dimensions of sleep and health. These include exploration of patterns of sleep-related behavior, manifestations of sleep disorders like insomnia, sleep apnea, and sleep paralysis, and multitudinal sleep concerns that evolve across the life-cycle, from infancy and childhood to adolescence and older age. Because cultural constructions of biological events provoke patterned social discourse and behavioral responses, the unique social and cultural manifestations surrounding sleep become amenable to diverse analyses. Though organized by anthropologists, this special issue includes contributions from anthropologists, sociologists, psychiatrists, physicians, psychologists, and professors of social policy. Over the past fifty years, social scientists have addressed connections between sleep, culture and health, but our work has been scattered across isolated book chapters and journals, published under the auspices of various disciplines. This dispersal has led to a lack of conceptual coherence, shared strategies, and opportunities to offer insight about the social and cultural components that link sleep and health. The two broad goals of this issue, then, are to provide a collective benchmark for the social science study of sleep and health, and to stimulate future social research into sleep, which should provide value both to the field of sleep medicine and to general public health. From social patterns of health interpretation and response, to how medical or therapeutic advice is pursued or selectively ignored, to the roles of globalization, commercialization, and industrialization on sleep-related health and ideology, there is critical work yet to be done. This special issue includes 14 contributions, divided into three domains: a) The critical importance of sleep, culture and health: biocultural and socioeconomic perspectives, b) Disordered, problematic, and problematized sleep, and c) Sleep, socialization, and health across the life-cycle. This final section is itself stratified into three parts, denoting the unique sleep and health-related concerns that occur across the life-cycle, from infancy and childhood to adolescence to older age. This introduction outlines the main research questions and critical contributions of each domain, then briefly discusses relevant themes that cut across all three domains. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Adolescent Age Factors Blood Cardiovascular Diseases Cardiovascular System Circadian Rhythm Energy Metabolism Epidemiology Hematologic Diseases Occupational Health Race Factors Safety Sex Characteristics Sleep Sleep Initiation And Maintenance Disorders

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• Keywords:
  Adolescents Age Factors Blood Sugar Disorders Cardiovascular Disease Children Circadian Rhythms Gender Factors Hormone Activity Life Stages Metabolic Effects Obesity Population Based Studies Psychological Factors Racial Factors Sex Factors Sleep Deprivation Sleep Disorders Socioeconomics Sociological Factors

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• ISSN:
  0277-9536
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Illinois ; OSHA Region 1 ; OSHA Region 5 ; OSHA Region 6 ; Rhode Island ; Texas
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-6
• Volume:
  79
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20052752
• Citation:
  Soc Sci Med 2013 Feb; 79:1-6
• Contact Point Address:
  Doug Henry, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of North Texas, USA
• Email:
  dhenry@unt.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2013
• NORA Priority Area:
  Healthcare and Social Assistance
• Performing Organization:
  University of Chicago
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20090901
• Source Full Name:
  Social Science and Medicine
• End Date:
  20150831
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:feb7060740a2bdca41fed38dc0a02697b1678c6c006c1911b1d3b3761ddd37b8da2d3e49f8c883ad01c850a944d02010053913f84f7e47f90b08dffa80df3659
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/212230/cdc_212230_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 127.15 KB ]