Research

Mixed

Black, Hispanic, and Chinese adults have significantly higher odds of sleep disordered breathing (SDB) and short sleep duration compared to White adults, independent of obesity and other demographic factors.

If you are Black, Hispanic, or Chinese, you are statistically much more likely to have undiagnosed sleep apnea or short sleep than White individuals, even if you are not overweight. You should prioritize objective sleep testing (PSG) rather than relying on self-reported sleep quality, as standard screening often misses these populations.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Compared with Whites, Blacks had higher odds of sleep apnea syndrome... short sleep... poor sleep quality... and daytime sleepiness... Hispanics and Chinese had higher odds of SDB and short sleep than Whites.
Xiaoli Chen et al. · SLEEP · 2015

Why this rating

Large, multi-ethnic, objective polysomnography and actigraphy data, though cross-sectional.

Source

Racial/Ethnic Differences in Sleep Disturbances: The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA)

Xiaoli Chen et al. · SLEEP · 2015

DOI 10.5665/sleep.4732

cross_sectional · n=2230Cited 895×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

This is one finding among thousands. Every one is graded and traced to its source, so you can see what the evidence actually supports. Browse the research →