Longitudinal associations between high school sleep characteristics and young adult health outcomes

Short sleep duration and evening chronotype are independently associated with negative health outcomes. However, it is unclear how adolescent sleep duration and chronotype are longitudinally associated with health outcomes during early adulthood.

Participants from the NEXT Generation Health Study (n = 2,783; 54.5% female) completed measures of sleep duration (scheduled day and unscheduled day) and chronotype in high school. Sleep duration, chronotype, general health, depressive symptoms, and psychosomatic symptoms were also assessed 4 years after high school. Latent variables estimated high school scheduled-day sleep duration, unscheduled-day sleep duration, and chronotype using the during high school measures. Two path analyses tested the prospective associations between high school sleep duration (separate models for scheduled and unscheduled days) and chronotype with 4 years after high school health outcomes as mediated by concurrent sleep duration and chronotype.

In the scheduled-day model, longer high school sleep duration and later chronotype were associated with longer duration and later chronotype in early adulthood. Longer high school sleep duration was directly associated with fewer psychosomatic symptoms and indirectly associated with fewer depressive and psychosomatic symptoms through longer sleep duration in early adulthood. Later chronotype in high school was indirectly associated with poorer general health, greater depressive symptoms, and greater psychosomatic symptoms in early adulthood through later chronotype.

Findings highlight the roles of scheduled-day sleep duration and evening chronotype in shaping health outcomes and suggest the importance of chronotype and optimal sleep habits among adolescents.

Maultsby KD, Temmen CD, Lewin D, et al. Longitudinal associations between high school sleep characteristics and young adult health outcomes. J Clin Sleep Med. 2022;18(11):2527-2536.