Enhancing Cardiovascular Health in Mothers and Children Through Home Visiting

Washington University, Saint Louis MO

Investigators

Linked publications, trials & patents

Abstract

This administrative supplement application in response to NOT-OD-24-179, will leverage our NHLBI-funded UH3 grant: “Enhancing Cardiovascular (CV) Health in Mothers and Children Through Home Visiting (ENRICH)” to study sleep health during pregnancy in low socioeconomic status (SES) and/or Underrepresented Minorities (URM) women, as defined by NIH. Sleep health consists of multiple domains: sleep regularity, satisfaction, alertness, timing, efficiency, duration and lack of sleep disorders, (i.e., sleep-disordered breathing [SDB] and insomnia). Sleep health worsens over the course of pregnancy. Disparities in sleep health are present in non-pregnant low SES/URM populations, however few studies have characterized sleep health using robust measures in low SES/URM pregnant women. Another important gap that this proposal aims to address is characterizing the extent to which social determinants of health (SDOH) are related to sleep health in low SES/URM pregnant women. Neighborhood environment, sociocultural environment, and health care access are SDOH defined by Healthy People 2030, and domains of influence over the life course defined by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) Research Framework. These SDOH are related to sleep health in non-pregnant low SES/URM populations, but the relationships have not been evaluated in pregnancy, a unique time to study sleep due to physical, hormonal, and emotional changes. Finally, the extent to which CV health is related to sleep health in low SES/URM pregnant women will also be investigated in this proposal. We propose a sub-study of the ENRICH trial at the Washington University Clinical Center, to characterize sleep health in 50 low SES/URM pregnant women using an in-home sleep testing device and actigraphy, allowing for collection of objective measures of sleep without requiring the participants to leave their home. Additionally, we will leverage data that is being collected as part of the parent ENRICH trial to study associations of sleep health with SDOH and CV health. Geographic Information Systems tools will be used to expand SDOH measures collected in the parent ENRICH trial to examine the association between community level SDOH and sleep health. This highly significant study will advance our understanding of sleep health and its relationship to SDOH and CV health in low SES/URM pregnant women. Data from this study will serve as the foundation for future work that will result in sleep interventions and updated guidelines for screening and treatment of sleep in pregnancy.