Perceived school safety, perceived neighborhood safety, and insufficient sleep among adolescents

Objectives: To examine whether perceptions of school safety and neighborhood safety are associated with insufficient sleep during adolescence.

Design: The Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey (FYSAS) is a cross-sectional study of adolescents.

Setting: The state of Florida.

Participants: Middle-school and high-school students (n = 7,958) attending public schools in 2017.

Measurements: Based on National Sleep Foundation recommendations, sleep was categorized as insufficient (less than 7 hours) or sufficient (7 or more hours) using self-reports of average sleep duration on school nights. Self-reports of perceived safety at school and perceived safety in one's neighborhood were modeled as predictors of insufficient sleep in logistic regression models when accounting for several covariates.

Results: Adjusting for model covariates, the odds of insufficient sleep among adolescents who feel unsafe both at school and in their neighborhood are 129% greater relative to adolescents who feel safe in both contexts. In comparison, the odds of insufficient sleep among adolescents who feel unsafe only at school are 39% greater relative to adolescents who feel safe both at school and in their neighborhood, and the odds of insufficient sleep among adolescents who feel unsafe only in their neighborhood are 71% greater relative to adolescents who feel safe both at school and in their neighborhood.

Conclusions: The findings of this study indicate that efforts to improve the safety of salient social contexts in which adolescents develop may reduce the likelihood of insufficient sleep faced by a large portion of school-aged children.