美睡眠調查 西弗吉尼亞州最缺覺

Sleepless in Seattle? Hardly. West Virginia is where people are really staying awake, according to the first government study to monitor state-by-state differences in sleeplessness.

West Virginians' lack of sleep was about double the national rate, perhaps a side effect of health problems such as obesity, experts said.

Nearly 1 in 5 West Virginians said they did not get a single good night's sleep in the previous month. The national average was about 1 in 10, according to a federal health survey conducted last year and released Thursday.

Tennessee, Kentucky and Oklahoma also were notably above average in their reported lack of sleep. In contrast, North Dakota had fewer problems sleeping, with only 1 in 13 reporting that degree of sleeplessness.

Health officials do not know the exact reasons for the differences.

"We didn't ask 'Why didn't you get enough rest or sleep?'" said Lela McKnight-Eily, an epidemiologist for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who led the study.

But experts noted several possible explanations: West Virginia ranks at or near the bottom of the nation in several important measurements of health, including obesity, smoking, heart disease and the proportion of adults with disabilities. Studies have increasingly found sleeping problems in people with certain health problems, including obesity.

"You would expect to see poorer sleep within a chronically diseased population," noted Darrel Drobnich of the National Sleep Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy and research organization.

Some experts believe sleep-deprived people are more inclined to eat fatty foods during the day.

"There's growing evidence sleep deprivation promotes obesity," said Dr. Ronald Chervin, a University of Michigan sleep disorders expert.

Financial stress and odd-hour work shifts can play roles in sleeplessness, too, Chervin added. He suggested those may be contributing factors in West Virginia, an economically depressed state with tens of thousands of people working in coal mining.

Thursday's report was based on results of an annual telephone survey of more than 400,000 Americans, including at least 3,900 in each state. The survey did not include people who use only cell phones.

西雅圖不眠夜？恐怕不一定。美國首個有關各州睡眠情況的政府調查顯示，西弗吉尼亞州的人們最缺乏睡眠。

專家稱，西弗吉尼亞州的睡眠不足發生率約爲全國值的兩倍，這可能是由肥胖等健康問題造成的。

近五分之一的西弗吉尼亞州居民稱，他們在之前的一個月沒有睡過一個好覺。上週四公佈的一項去年開展的聯邦健康調查顯示，全美的睡眠不足率約爲十分之一。

田納西州、肯塔基州和俄克拉荷馬州所報告的睡眠不足率也明顯高於全國水平。而相比之下，北達科他州的睡眠問題較少，十三人中僅有一人稱自己有那種程度的失眠。

目前，健康官員尚不清楚造成這種差別的具體原因。

負責此項研究的美國疾病防控中心的流行病學家萊拉•麥克耐特-艾莉說：“我們並沒有提出‘爲什麼你沒有得到足夠的休息或者睡眠？’這一問題。”

但專家提出了幾種可能的解釋：西弗吉尼亞州的幾項重要健康指標都處於或接近全國最低水平，其中包括肥胖、吸菸、心臟病以及成年人殘疾的比例。越來越多的研究發現有某些健康問題的人存在睡眠問題，如肥胖。

非贏利性倡導和研究機構美國睡眠基金會的德洛•布尼奇指出：“患有慢性疾病的人羣睡眠較差。”

一些專家認爲，睡眠不足的人在白天更想吃高脂肪的食品。

密歇根大學的睡眠紊亂專家羅納德•謝爾文博士說：“越來越多的證據表明，睡眠不足會導致肥胖。”

謝爾文稱，經濟壓力和頻繁倒班也會導致失眠。他認爲西弗吉尼亞的睡眠問題可能也與這些因素有關。該州的經濟狀況不佳，很多人在煤礦工作。

上週四發佈的這份調查報告基於一項對40多萬美國人開展的年度電話調查的結果，每州至少有3900人蔘與。該調查不包括只使用手機的用戶。

Vocabulary:

epidemiologist：流行病學家

chronically：having long had a disease, habit, weakness, or the like（慢性地，長期地）

sleep disorder：a disturbance of the normal sleep pattern（睡眠障礙，失眠）