Racial and Ethnic Differences in Sleep Duration Life Expectancies among Men and Women in Mid-to-Late Life

This analysis documents U.S. racial/ethnic and gender differences in life expectancies with different self-reported sleep durations among adults aged 50 and older. We used self-reported sleep duration and linked mortality information from the 2004–2015 National Health Interview Survey (n = 145,015) to calculate Sullivan Method Lifetables for life expectancies with different self-reported sleep duration states: short (≤6 hours), optimal (seven to 8 hours), and long (≥9 hours) sleep duration per-day by race/ethnicity and gender. Non-Hispanic Black men (35.8%, 95% CI: 34.8%–36.8%) and women (36.5%, 95% CI: 35.7%–37.1%) exhibited the highest proportion of years lived with short sleep duration followed by Hispanic men (31.1%, 95% CI: 29.9%–32.3%) and women (34.1%, 95% CI: 33.1%–35.1%) and Non-Hispanic White men (25.8%, 95% CI: 25.4%–26.2%) and women (27.4%, 95% CI: 27.0%–27.7%). These results highlight how race/ethnic inequality in sleep duration and life expectancy are intertwined among older adults in the U.S.