Association between social jetlag and self-rated health: Evidence from Korean representative working population

Social jetlag is a circadian misalignment that arises from a discrepancy between activity/sleep schedules on school/work days and free days. This study explored the correlation between social jetlag and self-rated health (SRH) in a representative sample of Korea.

This study included 8259 working population in the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2016-2018. Social jetlag was calculated as the difference between the midpoint of sleep time on work day and work-free day. Five-point Likert scale of SRH was used to assess subjective health perception on general health conditions. Multiple logistic regression analysis was performed to calculate the odds ratios (ORs) and 95 % confidence interval (CI) for poor SRH in the 1-2 h or longer than 2 h social jetlag groups compared to that in the reference group (less than 1 h), after adjusting for age, sex, marital status, occupation, household income, and weekly working hours.

The proportions of those with <1 h, 1-2 h, >2 h of social jetlag were 63.80 %, 25.67 %, and 10.53 %, respectively. The risk of poor SRH increased as social jetlag increased. Greater social jetlag was significantly associated with an increased likelihood of reporting poor SRH. The adjusted ORs for the groups with social jetlag between 1 and <2 h, and >2 h were 1.100 (95 % CI = 0.935-1.295), and 1.503 (95 % CI = 1.097-1.727), respectively. Moreover, the OR trend was statistically significant (p for trend = 0.008).

This study found that social jetlag and poor SRH were significantly related in the Korean working population.