Childhood environments and their relationship with sleep and ambulatory blood pressure in college students

Abstract

Objective: Investigate whether psychosocial risk in the childhood family environment moderates the relationship between childhood socioeconomic status (SES) and sleep, and the relationship between childhood SES and ambulatory blood pressure (ABP) in college students, two factors that are linked to future risk for cardiovascular disease. Participants: 124 American college students. Methods: Childhood SES and psychosocial risk in childhood family environments were measured by self-report instruments. Sleep was measured with self-report and actigraphy (over 5 days) and ABP over a 2-day period. Results: Linear regressions adjusting for age, sex, current SES, and current depressive symptoms indicated that SES and psychosocial risk in family environments during childhood interact to inform sleep quality, actigraphy derived wake after sleep onset (WASO), actigraphy derived Sleep Efficiency (SE) and ABP. Conclusions: Psychosocial risk in the childhood family environment may offset previously documented relationships between childhood SES and health-relevant outcomes in college students.

Keywords:

• Ambulatory blood pressure
• childhood environments
• college students
• family environments
• sleep
• socioeconomic status

Conflict of interest disclosure

The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute of Health.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under Award Number P20GM103474 and U54GM115371.