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Many behavioral factors are known to increase your risk of early death. In a study published Monday, Oregon Health & Science University researchers analyzed data tied to several such variables, and found that, with the exception of smoking, none—exercise, food insecurity, loneliness, unemployment, health insurance, education—had a greater correlation to shorter life expectancy than insufficient sleep.
“We think of sleep as something that may not be as important—’I’ll get it tomorrow, or I can wait till the weekend to catch up on it’—where it really needs to be something that we prioritize on a daily basis,” says Andrew McHill, a senior author on the study and the director of the Sleep Chronobiology and Health Laboratory at the OHSU School of Nursing, where a graduate team conducted much of the research.
McHill tells WW he came up with the idea for the study last year. He was on an advocacy board talking to some politicians, and they told him if he wanted to make a difference he should engage more at the local level. “Being a sleep and circadian physiologist,” he recalls, “it got me into thinking: ‘What does sleep look like in Oregon?’”
As it happened, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control collected survey data for every U.S. county tracking, among many other variables, insufficient sleep—defined as less than seven hours per night.
Federal data shows Oregon statewide has one of the nation’s best (which is to say, lowest) rates of insufficient sleep. But when McHill broke the data down by county, he found notable variation, and that the counties with higher rates of insufficient sleep tended to have shorter life expectancies.
McHill expanded his lens. He says he and other researchers analyzed data spanning 2019 to 2025 from all 3,143 U.S. counties, controlling for common adverse health behaviors. The same result held.
It’s hardly news that inadequate sleep is tied to greater mortality risk. But by analyzing such a wide swath of data and accounting for other factors (obesity, for example), the resulting study, published in the journal SLEEP Advances, says it was able to demonstrate the “importance of adequate sleep in all communities regardless of income level, access to health care services, or geographical classification.”
McHill says he wants the study to bolster public and policymakers appreciation for obtaining sufficient sleep. When a late-night streaming program eases you into the next episode, its easy to think “‘Oh, you know, what’s another 30 minutes?,’’” he says. “But it could have really dramatic consequences.”
