Impact of Bed Provision and Enhanced Sleep Health Education on Sleep in Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Children
2019 Community Sleep Health and Public Awareness Grant
Jodi Mindell, PhD and Ariel Williamson, PhD
Saint Joseph’s University and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
Key Project Outcomes
This project evaluated the feasibility, acceptability, and child sleep outcomes of enhanced, telephone-based sleep health education delivered by trained staff from the Beds for Kids program, which provides beds, bedding, and written sleep health education to children living at or below 100% of the US poverty line and without an individual bed to sleep in. We randomly assigned 80 families (child mean age 10 years, 55% girls, 71% African American/Black; 89% mothers, 67% African American/Black, 57% high school education or less) to the standard Beds for Kids program (41 families) or to Beds for Kids enhanced with staff-delivered child sleep health education (39 families). Thus far, study results indicate strong feasibility, with 86% of intervention families completing 100% (2 of 2) of the intervention sessions. Caregivers also reported that the sleep health education sessions were highly acceptable, with >81% agreeing or strongly agreeing that they liked the intervention strategies, that the strategies were likely to result in permanent sleep change, and that they would use the strategies in the future. Our next steps are to assess the impacts of the Beds for Kids program + enhanced sleep health education versus the standard Beds for Kids program on caregiver-reported and child-reported child sleep.