Objective four is to “increase the proportion of adults who get sufficient sleep.” In the course of stakeholder discussions on this objective it became evident that the fields of sleep research and sleep medicine lack a clear recommendation regarding what constitutes “sufficient” sleep. Department of Health and Human Services initiative to improve the nation's health.

In 2013, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research Society received a one year grant, renewable annually for up to five years, from the CDC entitled the “National Healthy Sleep Awareness Project.” This Project addresses the four sleep health objectives from Healthy People 2020, 53 a U.S. 51 The CDC presently considers this progressive decline in sleep duration a public health epidemic. adults sleeping ≤ 6 hours in a 24-hour period from 38.6 million to 70.1 million. This trend represents a near doubling in the number of U.S. 50 A recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) analysis shows that between 19 mean sleep duration decreased and the percentage of adults sleeping ≤ 6 hours in a 24-hour period increased. 23, 48, 49 Environmental factors, such as occupational duties and commute time, family responsibilities, and social and recreational opportunities, can lead to substantial discrepancies between the amount of sleep needed and the amount of sleep obtained.

Twin studies show sleep duration heritability between 31% and 55%, suggesting substantial genetic influences on sleep need.

Sleep duration shows substantial intra- and inter-individual variation. These observations raise a critical question: How much sleep is needed for optimal health? 34 – 37 Sleep duration is associated with mortality risk 38 – 40 and with illnesses ranging from cardiovascular 41 and cerebrovascular 42 disease to obesity, 43 diabetes, 44 cancer, 45, 46 and depression. 20, 21 Sleep is also critically involved in systemic physiology, including metabolism, 22 – 26 appetite regulation, 27, 28 immune and hormone function, 29 – 33 and cardiovascular systems. Sleep is vital to human health, necessary for life, 1, 2 and it serves critical roles in brain functions including neurobehavioral, cognitive and safety-related performance, 3 – 13 memory consolidation, 14, 15 mood regulation, 16, 17 nociception 18, 19 and clearance of brain metabolites.

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