Agreement between self-reported and objectively measured sleep duration among white, black, Hispanic, and Chinese adults in the United States: Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis

Study Objectives: To identify systematic biases across groups in objectively and subjectively measured sleep duration. Methods: We investigated concordance of self-reported habitual sleep duration compared with actigraphy- and single-night in-home polysomnography (PSG) across white, black, Hispanic, and Chinese participants in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. Results: Among 1910 adults, self-reported sleep duration, determined by differences between bed and wake times, was overestimated in all racial groups compared with PSG and actigraphy. Compared with whites (rho = 0.45), correlations were significantly lower only in blacks (rho = 0.28). Self-reporting bias for total sleep time compared with wrist actigraphy was 66 min (95% confidence interval [CI]: 61-71) for whites, 58 min (95% CI: 48-69) for blacks, 66 min (95% CI: 57-74) for Hispanics, and 60 min (95% CI: 49-70) for Chinese adults. Compared with PSG, self-reporting bias in whites at 73 min (95% CI: 67-79) was higher than in blacks (54 min [95% CI: 42-65]) and Chinese (49 min [95% CI: 37-61]) but not different from Hispanics (67 min [95% CI: 56-78]). Slight agreement/concordance was observed between self-reported and actigraphy-based total sleep time (k(w) = 0.14 for whites, 0.10 for blacks, 0.17 for Hispanics, and 0.11 for Chinese) and PSG (k(w) = 0.08 for whites, 0.04 for blacks, 0.05 for Hispanics, and 0.01 for Chinese) across race/ethnicity. Conclusions: Self-reported sleep duration overestimated objectively measured sleep across all races, and compared with PSG, overestimation is significantly greater in whites compared with blacks. Larger reporting bias reduces the ability to identify significant associations between sleep duration and health among blacks compared with whites. Sleep measurement property differences should be considered when comparing sleep indices across racial/ethnic groups.