Adolescent Sleep Barriers: Profiles within a Diverse Sample of Urban Youth

Most adolescents face numerous obstacles to good sleep, which may undermine healthy development. In this study, we used latent class analysis and identified four categories of sleep barriers in a diverse sample of 553 urban youth (57% female). The majority profile, School/Screens Barriers, reported the most homework and extracurricular barriers, along with high screen time. The Home/Screens Barriers class (i.e., high environmental noise, light, screen use) and the High/Social Barriers class (i.e., high barriers across domains, particularly social) reported the poorest sleep quality and highest depressive/anxiety symptoms. The Minimal Barriers class—predominately male, with low depressive/anxiety symptoms—reported more sleep per night. We discuss implications of our findings for targeting interventions to address poor adolescent sleep among specific clusters of students.