Discrimination and sleep difficulties among first-year students: Mediation by daily sleep quality

The transition to college is associated with increased sleep difficulties. Everyday discrimination is an important social determinant of sleep difficulties, and this study examined associations between precollege exposures to everyday discrimination and sleep during the first year of college. The study also considers the mediating role of daily sleep quality.

Using a combination of longitudinal surveys and daily diaries, the extent to which precollege exposures to everyday discrimination collected in the fall semester predicted sleep difficulties in the spring semester of students' first year in college was investigated in a sample of 628 diverse college students (mean age = 18.54 years). Sleep difficulties included self-reported sleep onset-related disturbance and daytime dysfunction.

Precollege exposures to everyday discrimination were associated with higher levels of daytime dysfunction (but not with sleep disturbance) in the spring semester. Precollege exposures to everyday discrimination were also associated with lower mean levels of daily sleep quality across 14 days; in turn, lower daily sleep quality contributed to higher levels of daytime dysfunction in the spring. Although precollege exposures to everyday discrimination were associated with higher variability in daily sleep quality, variability in daily sleep quality was not associated with sleep difficulties in the spring.

Precollege exposures to everyday discrimination were associated with sleep difficulties in the first year of college, and these sleep concerns are explained by daily-level sleep processes. Targeting daily sleep quality may be an important health lever to improve first-year college students' sleep problems and their transition to college. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).