The Night Divide: Gender-Specific Trajectories of Sleep Disturbances Among Multiple Cohorts of Aging Populations.

Objectives: Sleep disturbances in later life are prevalent and can profoundly impact health and well-being. However, whether and how trajectories of sleep disturbances vary as people age by gender and across age cohorts remains unexplored. This study uses an integrated theoretical framework to understand gender-specific trajectories of sleep disturbances over time and how they vary by cohort.

Methods: Accelerated longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study (N=20,947; M=8,562, F=12,385) was analyzed to investigate gender-specific trajectories of sleep disturbances and potential cohort variations. Weighted growth curve model was applied with sociodemographic and health-related variables. Men and women were analyzed separately.

Results: Results showed that sleep disturbances increased with age in men, but not in women. Also, younger cohorts of men increased sleep disturbances over time at a slower rate than older cohorts. Among men, health profiles accounted for the association between age and sleep disturbances. Among men and women, younger cohorts started with higher levels of sleep disturbances around midlife. When examining specific types of sleep disturbance separately, having trouble falling asleep was the type that drove the observed patterns in men. For women, there was no association between age and any individual type of sleep disturbance.

Discussion: This study shows that men, rather than women, tend to experience increasing sleep disturbances with age, with some variations across cohorts. These findings imply that different strategies for men and women and targeted timing over the life course would be most effective at promoting sleep health in American men and women.