Associations of daily weather and ambient air pollution with objectively assessed sleep duration and fragmentation: a prospective cohort study

Abstract

ObjectiveGiven the lack of studies examining the associations between daily weather and air pollution with nightly objective sleep over multiple weeks, we quantified these associations in a prospective cohort of healthy participants with episodic migraine. MethodsNinety-eight participants completed daily electronic diaries and wore an actigraph for an average of 45 ds, and a total 4406 nights of data were collected. Nightly sleep characteristics including duration, wake after sleep onset (WASO), and efficiency were assessed using wrist actigraphy. Daily weather parameters and air pollution levels were collected from local weather station and ground-level air quality monitors. We used linear fixed effects models adjusting for participant, day of the week, and day of the year (for weather analysis), and additionally adjusted for temperature and relative humidity (for air pollution analysis). ResultsThe participants were 35 ± 12 yrs old and 86 were women. A 10 °F higher daily average temperature was associated with 0.88 (95% CI: 0.06, 1.70) minutes longer WASO and 0.14% (95% CI: −0.01%, 0.30%) lower sleep efficiency on that night. A 14 parts per billion (ppb) (interquartile range) higher daily maximum eight-h ozone was associated with 7.51 (95% CI: 3.23, 11.79) minutes longer sleep duration on that night. Associations did not differ between cold (October–March) and warm (April–September) seasons. ConclusionsHigher daily ozone was associated with longer sleep duration and modest associations were observed between higher temperature and lower WASO and lower efficiency.