Sleep Health Promotion Interventions and Their Effectiveness: An Umbrella Review

Uthman Albakri, Elizabeth Drotos and Ree Meertens
Additional contact information
Uthman Albakri: Department of Health Promotion, Care and Public Health Research Institute (CAPHRI), NUTRIM School of Nutrition and Translational Research in Metabolism, Maastricht University, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands
Elizabeth Drotos: Department of Health Promotion, Care and Public Health Research Institute (CAPHRI), NUTRIM School of Nutrition and Translational Research in Metabolism, Maastricht University, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands
Ree Meertens: Department of Health Promotion, Care and Public Health Research Institute (CAPHRI), NUTRIM School of Nutrition and Translational Research in Metabolism, Maastricht University, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 11, 1-39

Abstract: Sleep is receiving increasing attention in public health. The aim of this umbrella review is to determine what non-pharmacological sleep health interventions have been evaluated among healthy populations, by examining target groups, settings, and effectiveness in improving sleep quality and duration. Comprehensive searches were conducted in five electronic databases (January 1975–February 2019), yielding 6505 records. Thirty-five articles were selected meeting the following eligibility criteria: (1) systematic reviews or meta-analyses of (2) sleep health interventions in (3) primarily healthy populations. Two reviewers independently screened for inclusion, extracted the data, and assessed the review quality. This umbrella review was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42019126291). Eleven intervention types were defined, and their effectiveness discussed. Substantial evidence demonstrated the effectiveness of later school start times, behavior change methods, and mind–body exercise. Other intervention types, including sleep education or relaxation techniques, demonstrated some promising impacts on sleep, but with less consistent evidence. Results were limited by high heterogeneity between studies, mixed results, and variable review quality. Nevertheless, this umbrella review is a first step towards understanding the current state of sleep health promotion and gives an overview of interventions across the lifespan.

Keywords: sleep; sleep hygiene; effectiveness; program evaluation; public health; systematic review (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/11/5533/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/11/5533/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:11:p:5533-:d:559573

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().