Elsevier

Sleep Medicine

Volume 10, Issue 10, December 2009, Pages 1118-1123
Sleep Medicine

Original Article
Does mental health history explain gender disparities in insomnia symptoms among young adults?

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2008.12.011Get rights and content

Abstract

Background

Insomnia is the most commonly reported sleep disorder, characterized by trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or waking up too early. Previous epidemiological data reveal that women are more likely than men to suffer from insomnia symptoms. We investigate the role that mental health history plays in explaining the gender disparity in insomnia symptoms.

Methods

Using logistic regression, we analyze National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES) III interview and laboratory data, merged with data on sociodemographic characteristics of the residential census tract of respondents. Our sample includes 5469 young adults (ages 20–39) from 1429 census tracts.

Results

Consistent with previous research, we find that women are more likely to report insomnia symptoms compared to men (16.7% vs. 9.2%). However, in contrast to previous work, we show that the difference between women’s and men’s odds of insomnia becomes statistically insignificant after adjusting for history of mental health conditions (OR = 1.08, p > .05).

Conclusions

The gender disparity in insomnia symptoms may be driven by higher prevalence of affective disorders among women. This finding has implications for clinical treatment of both insomnia and depression, especially among women.

Section snippets

Disclaimer

The findings and conclusions in this manuscript are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Data

A specially created geo-coded version of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) III, merged with information about neighborhood SES from the US Census, forms the basis for this study. The NHANES III includes interview data on a representative sample of US residents, collected between 1988 and 1994, with an over-sample of Blacks and Mexican Americans. Respondent addresses were geocoded to the census tract, using either address or street intersection. Fourteen-percent of

Results

Table 1 shows weighted descriptive statistics for the sample, including insomnia prevalence and demographic, social, and health characteristics. Almost a quarter of the sample reported having insomnia symptoms, and women had higher prevalence (27.4%) than men (21.6%). The distributions of the two key variables and how they vary by gender are also shown in Table 1.

Table 2 presents odds ratios for Models 1, 2, and 6, as previously described. In Model 1 (with age and race/ethnicity controls) women

Discussion

Consistent with previous literature, we find that women are more likely to report insomnia symptoms than men. Only a few studies have previously investigated why this disparity exists [33], [53]. We enhance this research by analyzing the role that various individual-level and neighborhood-level factors play in explaining the gender difference in insomnia. We find that neighborhood SES did not explain any of the gender difference. Individual-level sociodemographic factors, health behaviors and

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Robert N. Anderson, Julia S. Holmes, and Jennifer H. Madans of the National Center for Health Statistics for their review of a draft of this manuscript.

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