Sleep – Related Issues Targeted For Next Legislative Agenda

DANBURY — Danbury Hospital’s Sleep Disorders Center (SDC) is joining the National Sleep Foundation (NSF) in its efforts to establish and maintain an online grassroots movement to encourage elected officials to make sleep-related issues a higher priority on the next legislative agenda.

“Sleep is as important to health as diet and exercise. And it can mean the difference between life and death on our nation’s highways,” said Arthur Kotch, MD, medical director, Danbury Hospital Sleep Disorders Center. “We must get our elected officials, particularly those in both houses of Congress, to address sleep-related issues that are important to the health and safety of all Americans. And we are encouraging the public to make their voices heard.”

Sleep experts recommended at least eight hours of sleep a night for adults to function properly, and at least 8.5 hours of sleep for adolescents. But recent NSF polls find, on average, adults sleep less than seven hours during the work week, and about 85 percent of American’s teens get less than the recommended amount of sleep. The result is that America is a sleep-deprived nation. Adults are sleepy on the job and are underperforming; teens are coming to school too sleepy to learn.

Danbury Hospital’s SDC and SNF encourage the public to help make sleep a national priority by joining a grassroots e-mail advocacy network through the NSF Web site www.sleepfoundation.org.

Individuals can sign up as Sleep Awareness Volunteers and are urged to present their views to candidates for national and local offices and request their support for sleep-related issues and recommendations such as those outlined in the following areas:

Education – Build sleep education into all school health and science curricula. Include sleep information in government supported public health programs. Allocate funding to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for the establishment of appropriate sleep programs.

Transportation – Fatigue is an important factor in crashes that result in injuries and deaths. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that approximately 100,000 crashes each year are caused by drowsiness or fatigue, including some 5,000 commercial truck crashes that kill or injure more than 20,000 people. There must be more safe rest areas on highways, and reasonable fatigue-related regulations governing commercial drivers must be implemented.

Schools – The school clock and the adolescent’s biological clock must be in sync. Educators must address problems resulting from starting middle and high schools too early and teens coming to school too sleepy. There should be support of “The Z’s to A’s Act” (H R 1267) introduced in Congress by Rep Zoe Lofgren (D-CA).

Medicine – The growing scientific recognition of the importance of sleep to medical and health issues must be adequately investigated. We must ensure that the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control place sleep research and education at the forefront of public health concerns.

To further assist sleep advocates, the NSF Web site provides information on advocacy issues including rest stops and drowsy driving, as well as advocacy links, and links to political publications.