Sleep health and its implications in First Nation Australians: A systematic review

Understanding the state of sleep health in First Nations Australians offers timely insight into intervention and management opportunities to improve overall health and well-being. This review explored the determinants and burden of poor sleep in First Nations Australians. A systematic search was conducted to identify studies published until August 2020 in First Nations Australian adults. Nine studies (n = 2640) were included, three in community settings, six in clinical populations. Across studies compared with non-Indigenous people, 15-34% of First Nations Australians experience less than recommended hours (< 7 h/night), 22% reported fragmented, irregular, and unrefreshing sleep with a high prevalence of OSA in clinical populations (39-46%). Findings show First Nations Australians are significantly more likely to report worse sleep health than Non-Indigenous Australians in all measured domains of sleep. Co-designed sleep programs and service delivery solutions are necessary to ensure timely prevention and management of sleep issues in First Nations communities which to date have been underserved. Copyright (C) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)