People in the North East are more likely to be sleep deprived than residents of any other UK region, according to new research from the Our Future Health programme. The study found that a higher proportion of people in the region get fewer than seven hours of sleep a night compared with elsewhere in the country.
The research programme, which aims to recruit up to five million UK adults to "revolutionise the way we fight disease", uses large datasets to identify patterns in illnesses ranging from dementia and diabetes to cancer. Its latest insights focus on the sleep habits of participants.
Regional Sleep Differences
In the North East, 29.1% of women and 27.2% of men get less than an average of seven hours of sleep. However, the difference in average sleep duration between the North East and the best-rested area, the South West, is only between six and seven minutes.
Overall, 73% of men and 70.6% of women reported getting the recommended seven to nine hours of sleep. Those in their early 50s reported the least sleep, at just under seven hours.
Snoring and Napping Patterns
The study also highlighted that nearly one third (31.6%) of people are kept awake by a partner's snoring. Among men, 38.7% reported complaints from their partner about snoring, compared with 23.6% of women. Men were also more likely to nap during the day.
When broken down by ethnicity, Black participants reported sleeping the least, at 6.74 hours per 24 hours, while White participants reported the most, at 7.15 hours — a difference of close to 25 minutes.
Health Research Implications
Iain Turnbull, deputy chief medical officer of Our Future Health and a GP, said: "What really stands out from the incredible breadth and scale of this data is the number of people snoring and the high rates of daytime napping. Both of these suggest that large proportions of the population aren’t getting the quality of sleep that they need."
Health researchers could use the data to explore links between snoring and disease, such as cross-referencing it with BMI scores, cardiovascular incidents, and rates of obstructive sleep apnoea. Self-reported tiredness and daytime napping data could help build a picture of sleep patterns and their health impacts.
Anyone in the UK over the age of 18 can join Our Future Health by signing up online at ourfuturehealth.org.uk.
