Getting Less Than 7 Hours Of Sleep Linked To Shorter Life Expectancy Across America

 

Longevity Regardless of Income or Location

In A Nutshell

• Sleeping fewer than seven hours per night is linked to shorter life expectancy across all 3,000+ U.S. counties studied, regardless of income level, healthcare access, or urban versus rural location.
• Sleep insufficiency ranked as the second-strongest predictor of reduced life expectancy after smoking when examining county-level data from 2019 to 2025, ahead of physical inactivity and diabetes.
• Neighboring counties can show vastly different sleep patterns and corresponding life expectancy gaps of several years, revealing potential targets for local public health interventions.
• The relationship between inadequate sleep and mortality remained consistent across all years studied, including during the COVID-19 pandemic, and held true even when researchers controlled for obesity, smoking, and other major health factors.

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