Sleep loss during the school week may contribute to teen
drowsy driving risk
A new study suggests that teen drivers
who start class earlier in the morning are involved in significantly more motor
vehicle accidents than peers with a later high school start time. The results underscore
the importance of the “Awake at the Wheel” campaign of the National Healthy
Sleep Awareness Project.
Results show that the weekday crash rate for teen drivers during
the 2009 to 2010 school year was about 29 percent higher in Chesterfield
County, Va., where high school classes began at 7:20 a.m., than in adjacent Henrico
County, Va., where classes started at 8:45 a.m. Similar results were found for the
2010 to 2011 school year, when the weekday crash rate for 16-17 year old teens in Chesterfield
County was about 27 percent higher than for those in Henrico County. In
contrast, there
was no difference in adult crash rates in the two counties for either year. A secondary
analysis evaluating the causes and types of crashes found that Chesterfield
County adolescents had a significantly higher rate of run-off-road crashes,
which is a common feature of drowsy driving accidents.
“There
are more and more data suggesting that insufficient sleep is common in our
teens and that early high school start times are a contributor to teens’
reduced sleep,” said principal investigator and lead author Dr. Robert Vorona, associate
professor in the Division of Sleep Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School
in Norfolk, Va. “Insufficient sleep
appears to have deleterious consequences such as decrements in mood and
increased risk taking, impaired academics and increased crash rates.”
The
results corroborate the findings of a previous study by Vorona’s team that
evaluated teen crash rates from 2007 to 2008. Results of the current study are
published in the November issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.
“When high school classes begin early in the
morning, we ask teens to shine when their biological clock tells them to
sleep,” said American Academy of
Sleep Medicine President Dr.
Timothy Morgenthaler, a national spokesperson for
the Healthy Sleep Project. “Many do not get adequate sleep as a result. Smarter
school start times, that are more consistent with sleep needs, will improve
students’ safety, overall health, mood and academic performance.”
Recently the Healthy Sleep Project launched the “Awake at the Wheel” campaign to increase public
awareness of the risks of drowsy driving. More details are available at www.projecthealthysleep.org.
The study involved an analysis of data provided by the Virginia
Department of Motor Vehicles. During both school years there were more than 520
motor vehicle accidents involving teen drivers in Chesterfield County and more
than 320 teen crashes in Henrico County.
The American Academy
of Sleep Medicine recommends that adolescents get a little more than nine hours
of nightly sleep for optimal health and daytime alertness during the critical
transition from childhood to adulthood. The AASM advises parents and local
school boards to work together to implement high school start times that allow
teens to get the healthy sleep they need to meet their full potential.
A new report from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety estimates that
drowsy driving may cause 328,000 motor vehicle accidents and 6,400 fatal crashes on U.S. roads each
year. Previous data analysis by AAA also shows
that the prevalence of drowsy driving crashes is highest among drivers between
the ages of 16 and 24 years.
No comments:
Post a Comment