Running head: SLEEP HEALTH 1

Sleep Health
Mitchel Taylor
Brigham Young University-Idaho
NURSE 433
Sister Dalling
December 4, 2018
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Sleep Health

Background

Sleep health is one of the overlooked health issues that is all too common in the United

States that needs to be improved. In particular, sleep health among adolescence is suffering. Of

students grades 9-12, only 30.9 percent of them get adequate sleep defined as 8 hours or more for

that age group (Healthy People 2020, 2018). Sleep, like proper nutrition and exercise is a critical

necessity for the well-being of an individual, especially during the development of children and

adolescence. Sleep loss affects basic patterns of behavior and negatively affects both physical

and mental development. Adequate sleep is also necessary to fight off infection, support the

metabolism of sugar to prevent diabetes, perform well in school, and work effectively and safely

(Del Rio, de Jesus, Carmo, & Pinto, 2018). If left untreated, insufficient sleep becomes habitual,

and can develop into sleep disorders which are associated with an increased risk of heart disease,

high blood pressure, obesity, and diabetes (Healthy People 2020, 2018).

Solution with Pros and Cons

Implementing educational classes in school that educate students about sleep health is a

possible solution to encourage students to get more sleep. Just like any strategy, educational

classes in school about the topic has its pros and cons. One of the advantages of having these

educational classes in school is the wide exposure the classes will have with students. Classes in

school will ensure that most if not all students will receive education on sleep health and

hopefully create new beneficial habits that allow them to get sufficient sleep.

A few of the problems regarding educational classes in school about sleep health is the

funding necessary to teach extra curriculum in school. Either teachers have to be instructed on
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the new material to teach a subject of which they know little about, or other instructors have to

be hired and travel from school to school to teach these special classes (Schroeder, Malones,

McCabe, Lipman, 2018). Also, class time must be rearranged. Time in school is strategically

allotted to cover all the subject material that is required, and valuable class time for other

subjects must be sacrificed to accommodate the new classes on sleep health.

Core Functions on Local, State, and National Level

The three core functions are assessment, policy development, and assurance are executed

on a combination of local, state, and national levels. Assessment and data collection along with

parts of assurance takes place on the local level within the schools (Stanhope & Lancaster,

2018). In order to create education classes on sleep health in schools, then students need to be

assessed. The school nurse and other investigators evaluate students on how much sleep they get

on a regular night, their health, how well they do in school, their sleep habits, and then find

correlations between data. After receiving new policies, the community and schools are expected

to help implement them and continue to evaluate for improvement with sleep health and its

effects among students.

On a state level policy development begins to take place. People are educated on the

problem at hand of sleep health among students. State representatives are made aware of the

issue of sleep health. Policies are created that support the movement of implementing classes on

sleep health into schools. Goals for the state are set to improve the sleep health of students within

the communities of the state. State funding may be set aside for these classes to help improve the

sleep health of students.

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On a national level information from states about the sleep health of students will be

recognized as a national problem. New policies and laws may be developed to further help solve

the problem of inadequate sleep among students in the nation. Additional funding may be set

aside on both national and state levels to provide sufficient personnel and resources to fund

classes that will educate young students on sleep health in attempt to improve adequate sleep in

the student population.

Evaluation

In order to evaluate the effectiveness of educational classes on sleep health students will

be evaluated periodically to see if there has been an improvement. Students will be given a

questionnaire asking how much sleep they get on a regular school night. If students report that

they regularly receive more sleep than they did at the start of the program, then it will be

considered effective. Grades, general health and sleep habits will also be evaluated to see if there

are any other positive correlations suggesting beneficial results from sufficient sleep.
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References
Healthy People 2020 (2018). Sleep health. Healthy People 2020. Retrieved from
https://wwhealthypeople.gov/2020/topics-objectives/topics?sleep-health
Del Rio, K. A., de Jesus, S. N., Carmo, C., & Pinto, P. (2018). Sleep quality components and
mental health: Study with a non-clinical population. Psychiatry Research, 269,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2018.08.020
Schroeder, K., Malones, S. K., McCabe, E., & Lipman, T. (2018). Addressing the social
determinants of health: A call to action for school nurses. Journal of School Nursing,
34(3) https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric
Stanhope, M., Lancaster, J. (2018). Foundation for Population Health in Community/Public
Health Nursing, 5th Edition. Retrieved from
https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/undefined/