Research
Adherence
There is a massive gap between objective sleep apnea severity and clinical diagnosis, with 84-93% of individuals with moderate-to-severe SDB remaining undiagnosed across all racial groups.
Do not rely on a doctor's diagnosis to rule out sleep apnea. If you have risk factors (race, obesity, snoring), seek objective testing, as the vast majority of moderate-to-severe cases go undiagnosed.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
In other words, 84–93% of MESA participants with PSG-measured moderate or more severe SDB did not report a doctor-diagnosed sleep apnea.
Why this rating
Based on direct comparison of PSG data vs. self-report in a large cohort.
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
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