New study finds: Black and brown people get worse sleep then whites because their smoke alarms keep beeping…

Research connects poor sleep to obesity, hypertension, and even death. Scientists at the University of Minnesota are exploring how sleeping problems perpetuate health disparities.

Over the last two decades, researchers and policymakers have been paying more and more attention to how everything from housing to racism to pollution influences health — and how these social determinants contribute to health disparities.

But newer research is finding that one thing has been missing from that list: sleep. 

“Sleep is absolutely a determinant of health,” said Dr. Rachel Widome, an associate professor in epidemiology and community health at the University of Minnesota. “Sleep has an impact on a whole host of health outcomes from physical to mental.”

Sleep can be seen as a resource, Widome said, one that Black and brown people have less access to, which exacerbates health inequities. People who don’t sleep as well appear to be at a higher risk for a slew of negative health outcomes, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and even death. 

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