EP96: Sleep Health is a Social Justice Issue

Sleep is as essential to human well-being as food and air. Poor sleep habits and sleep deprivation can have negative effects on our physical and mental health. Further, racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to get insufficient sleep than their white counterparts.

Jessi Pettigrew, MSW, LCSW, is a PhD candidate at the Graduate School of Social Work at Colorado State University. Working with clients, Jessi became curious about the intersection of sleep and mental health. She explains why social workers should be concerned about sleep health, even if they aren’t working in a clinical setting.

Posted January 17, 2023

Read a transcript of episode 96

You can also watch this interview and leave your comments on YouTube.

Related Resources

We Must Consider the Sleep Health of Our Clients

Correct assessment of sleep problems could lead to appropriate management of the problem, avoiding or correcting the detrimental medical complications that come along with undiagnosed sleep problems and ultimately improving client outcomes.

Tools for Social Workers

• Global Sleep Assessment Questionnaire (GSAQ) quickly screens for several sleep disorders
• Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) is a more thorough sleep assessment
• University of Pittsburgh Center for Sleep and Circadian Science offers sleep measures and instruments
• National Sleep Foundation provides education on sleep health topics for clinicians and clients

Learn More

Divided We Sleep
American Association for the Advancement of Science, 28 Oct 2021
Poor sleep disproportionately undermines the health of communities of color. Researchers want to figure out why and find solutions.

Why sleep could be the key to tackling mental illness
University of Oxford
Studies suggest that disrupted sleep such as insomnia could help predict episodes of mental illness and that fixing sleep problems may help treat them.