Does Sleep Quality Mediate the Association Between Neighborhood Disorder and Self-Rated Physical Health?

Lauren Hale, Stony Brook University, State University of New York (SUNY)
Terrence D. Hill, University of Miami
Amy M. Burdette, Mississippi State University

We examine whether the association between perceived neighborhood disorder and self-rated physical health is mediated by sleep quality. We use data from the 2004 Survey of Texas Adults (n = 1,323) to estimate a series of nested multivariate models. We find that both neighborhood disorder and poor sleep quality are associated with poorer self-rated health, even with controls for exercise, diet quality, smoking, obesity and a host of relevant sociodemographic factors. Using our series of nested models, we observe that the inverse association between neighborhood disorder and self-rated physical health is partially mediated by sleep quality. Poorer sleep among residents of high disorder neighborhoods may contribute to the cause of the poorer self-rated physical health in these neighborhoods. Interventions to improve sleep quality among residents of neighborhoods with high levels of disorder should be explored. Future research on the causal relationships between neighborhood disorder and sleep quality is needed.