Report shows more than one-third of Grand Rapids adults are sleep-deprived

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According to a new study from RetailMeNot, 37.6% of Grand Rapids adults sleep less than seven hours per night.

In addition, 15.3% of adults in Grand Rapids report poor mental health and 14.5% report poor physical health.

Grand Rapids’ percentage of adults who sleep less than seven hours is slightly above the percentage of all Americans (36.2%) who are sleep-deprived.

According to the report, the relationship between sleep deprivation and poor health is often cyclical: people find it harder to sleep because of health issues, and health issues can be more difficult to manage when sleep is insufficient. On top of that, poor sleep also leads to car crashes, industrial errors and other accidents that can cause serious injury.

The study noted many facets of modern life contribute to this lack of sleep, including technology and increasing working hours and commute times. Poverty, which deprives people of nutritious food and affordable housing, also is correlated with sleep deprivation.

In 2013, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention constituted the level of sleeplessness in the U.S. to be a public health epidemic, as an estimated 70 million Americans experience insufficient sleep.

Methodology

The data used in this analysis is from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s PLACES 2020 Release.

To identify the most sleep-deprived locations, researchers ranked cities and states based on the percentage of adults who reported usually getting less than seven hours of sleep in 24 hours. Researchers also included data on physical and mental health — adults who report 14 or more days in a month in which their physical or mental health was not good.

To improve relevance, only cities with at least 100,000 residents were included. Additionally, cities were grouped into cohorts based on population: small (100,000-149,999), midsize (150,000-349,999), and large (350,000 or more).

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