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Promoting Sleep Health Among Families of Young Children in Head Start: Protocol for a Social-Ecological Approach

Karen A Bonuck1, Arthur Blank2, Barbara True-Felt3

  • 1Department of Family and Social Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY 10461.

Preventing Chronic Disease
|September 2, 2016
PubMed

Insights

Promoting healthy sleep habits in early childhood education programs improves children's sleep duration and behavior. This study empowers families with essential sleep knowledge, addressing common sleep problems and supporting healthy development.

Area of Science:

  • Child Development
  • Sleep Science
  • Public Health Interventions

Background:

  • Poor sleep in early childhood negatively impacts cognitive, social-emotional development, and obesity risk.
  • Prevalence of sleep problems (short duration, behavioral issues, sleep-disordered breathing) in 3-5 year olds ranges from 20% to 50%.
  • Healthy sleep habits and early detection of sleep disorders are crucial for child well-being.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To empower families in early childhood programs with knowledge and skills for healthy sleep and problem recognition.
  • To adapt educational materials and build capacity for implementing sleep health interventions in Head Start programs.
  • To evaluate the impact of sleep health promotion and problem screening on child, parent, and classroom outcomes.

Main Methods:

  • A stepped-wedge-cluster randomized trial involving 540 parent-child dyads in Head Start.
  • Utilized a social-ecological framework for multi-level interventions (individual, interpersonal, organizational, community, policy).
  • Included a primary prevention trial for sleep health promotion and a secondary prevention feasibility study for screening sleep problems.

Main Results:

  • Primary outcome: children's sleep duration. Secondary outcomes: parent knowledge, attitudes, self-efficacy, behavior, child sleep difficulties, classroom behaviors, and policies.
  • Analysis will assess the effects of the Early Childhood Sleep Education Program (ECSEP) on various child and parent metrics.
  • Policy evaluation will examine the impact of knowledge-translation strategies on integrating sleep health literacy.

Conclusions:

  • Integrating sleep health literacy into early childhood programs can significantly benefit children's development.
  • Empowering families with sleep education is a viable strategy to improve child sleep health.
  • This intervention has the potential to positively influence the life-course development of millions of children.

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