Abstract Body (Do not enter title and authors here): Background: Pediatric hypertension is linked to environmental factors like neighborhood noise disrupting sleep, which is crucial for health. The specific interaction between noise and sleep health in causing hypertension still needs to be explored.
Research Question: How does the interaction between neighborhood environmental noise and sleep health affect the incidence of pediatric hypertension?
Aims: To estimate the incidence of hypertension in American adolescents and to investigate the individual and joint effects of exposure to neighborhood environmental noise and sleep health on its incidence.
Methods: Our analysis involved 3,320 individuals from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study across 21 US cities, followed prospectively from 2018-2020 (T0) to 2020-2022 (T1). We included only those with complete data: Fitbit-tracked sleep, blood pressure, height, neighborhood noise, and relevant covariates (biological sex, ethnicity, pubertal stage, waist circumference). Hypertension was defined as average blood pressure at or above the 95th percentile for age, sex, and height, based on American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines. Sleep health was classified based on daily duration into three categories: healthy (9-12 hours), moderately healthy (1 hour below or above optimal), and low (more than 1-hour deviation). Neighborhood noise exposure was quantified using median anthropogenic noise levels at night, linked to participants’ zip codes. We estimated hypertension incidence and its relative risks (RR, 95% CI), examining the effect (individual and joint) of sleep health and environmental noise on hypertension risk.
Results: At Time 1 (T1), the mean age was 13.9 years; 47.6% were girls, and 52.9% were White. Hypertension prevalence in 2018-2020 was 1.7% (CI95% 1.4; 2.1), and the incidence after two years was 2.9% (CI95% 2.4; 3.6). Night noise was 58.4 decibels, 29.9% healthy sleep time (T0); 20.3% healthy sleep time (T1). Adolescents with more favorable healthy sleep showed a lower risk of developing hypertension RR= 0.63 (CI 95% 0.25 to 0.82). We found no association between noisy neighborhoods and no joint effects (neighborhood noise + sleep health) with hypertension incidence.
Conclusions: Adequate sleep is associated with a lower risk of hypertension in adolescents. However, no significant link was found between neighborhood noise and pediatric hypertension. This highlights the need for public health efforts to improve sleep quality in youth.