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BACKGROUND Racial disparities in hypertension prevalence in the United States are established. Given our understanding of racial and ethnic disparities in sleep characteristics and demonstrated associations between sleep characteristics and hypertension, we tested whether sleep characteristics mediated racial disparities in hypertension. METHODS Analyses were performed in the Chicago Area Sleep Study, a population-based cohort study of 154 Blacks, 128 Whites, 103 Hispanics, and 109 Asians without obstructive sleep apnea. Participants underwent 7 days of wrist actigraphy monitoring. Algorithms were used to determine sleep duration and sleep maintenance (the percent of sleep in the sleep period). Hypertension was determined as systolic blood pressure >140 mm Hg or diastolic blood pressure >90 mm Hg or the use of antihypertensive medications. We estimated sample prevalence ratios for hypertension before and after adjustment for sleep characteristics and also conducted mediation analysis. RESULTS The sample prevalence of hypertension was highest in Blacks (36%), followed by Hispanics (14%), Asians (8%), and Whites (5%). The sample prevalence ratio for hypertension for Blacks vs. Whites was 5.52 (95% confidence interval (CI): 2.36, 13.23) after adjusting for age, sex, and education. Adjustment for sleep duration had no influence on the effect estimate, but adjustment for sleep maintenance attenuated the sample prevalence ratio to 4.55 (95% CI: 1.91, 11.14). Sleep maintenance mediated 11.4% of the difference in hypertension prevalence between Blacks and Whites in this sample. CONCLUSIONS Sleep maintenance mediated a small but significant portion of the disparity in hypertension between Blacks and Whites. Future research should investigate the mechanisms underlying these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Prior studies report less favorable sleep characteristics among non-Whites as compared with non-Hispanic Whites. However, few population-based studies have used objective measures of sleep duration, especially in more than two racial/ethnic groups. We tested whether objectively estimated sleep duration and self-reported sleep quality varied by race and whether differences were at least partially explained by the variability in clinical, psychological, and behavioral covariates.Methods: Adults aged 35-64 years who self-identified as White, Black, Asian, or Hispanic were randomly sampled from Chicago, IL, and the surrounding suburbs. Our analytic sample included adults who had an apnea-hypopnea index <15 after one night of screening and who completed seven nights of wrist actigraphy for determination of sleep duration, sleep percentage, minutes of wake after sleep onset, and sleep fragmentation (n = 495). Daytime sleepiness was estimated using the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS), and sleep quality was estimated from the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI).Results: Following statistical adjustment for age, gender, education, work schedule (ie, day vs. night shift), smoking status, depressive symptoms, body mass index (BMI), hypertension, and diabetes, sleep duration (minutes) was significantly (all p < 0.01) shorter in Black (mean = 399.5), Hispanic (mean = 411.7), and Asian (mean = 409.6) participants than in White participants (mean = 447.4). All remaining sleep characteristics were significantly less favorable among Black participants as compared with White participants. Asian participants also reported significantly more daytime sleepiness than did White participants.Conclusions: Differences in sleep characteristics by race/ethnicity are apparent in a sample of adults with a low probability of sleep apnea and following adjustment for known confounders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]