Cultural Beliefs and Practices Impacting Teenage Sleep

描述（由申请人提供）：在大多数情况下，当代美国青少年表现出严重的睡眠问题。睡眠不足和睡眠时间不一致引起公众健康关注，因为它们使青少年面临一系列发育困难的风险，包括危险行为和药物使用、内化问题、肥胖和学习成绩不佳。改善青少年睡眠的努力必须承认睡眠，尽管生理上的必要性也是一种文化和社会实践。由于研究表明少数民族青少年经历了更大的睡眠问题等差异，因此，超越简单地展示人口统计学差异，并对文化信仰和习俗在青少年睡眠中的作用提供更深入理解的研究变得至关重要。不幸的是，人们对文化信仰和习俗影响青少年睡眠的过程知之甚少。我们建议建立能力和基础设施，建立一个研究团队，并开发一个跨学科的方法工具箱，以开展关于文化信仰和习俗在青少年睡眠中的作用的基本行为研究。通过将睡眠、神经科学、青少年社会发展和文化方面的专业知识汇集在一起，我们将努力(1)进一步发展和完善文化信仰和实践对青少年睡眠影响的跨学科概念和启发式模型；(2)开发新的方法工具箱来研究文化信仰和习俗对青少年睡眠的影响；(3)测试新方法，最终形成一个最终的方法工具箱，用于未来更大规模的关于文化信仰和习俗对青少年睡眠影响的研究。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): By most accounts, contemporary American teenagers exhibit significant sleep problems. Sleep deficits and inconsistent sleep timing generate public health concerns because they place adolescents at risk for a host of developmental difficulties, including risky behavior and substance use, internalizing problems, obesity and academic underachievement. Efforts to improve teenage sleep must acknowledge that sleep, although a biological imperative is also a culturally and socially embedded practice. With studies suggesting disparities such that ethnic minority teenagers experience greater sleep problems, research that goes beyond simply demonstrating demographic variations and provides a deeper understanding of the role of cultural beliefs and practices in teenage sleep has become essential. Unfortunately, little is known about the processes by which cultural beliefs and practices impact teenage sleep. We propose building the capacity and infrastructure to create a research team and develop a trans-disciplinary toolbox of methods to conduct basic behavioral research on the role of cultural beliefs and practices in teenage sleep. By bringing together researchers with expertise in sleep, neuroscience, adolescent social development, and culture, we will work to (1) further develop and refine a trans-disciplinary conceptual and heuristical model of the impact of cultural beliefs and practices on teenage sleep; (2) develop a new toolbox of methods to study the impact of cultural beliefs and practices on teenage sleep; and (3) test the new methods, culminating in a finalized toolbox of methods to be used in a future, larger study of the impact of cultural beliefs and practices on teenage sleep.