B3433 - Longitudinal association between sleep at age 3 and behavior and cognition from ages 4 to 6 years in Lifecycle cohorts - 28/01/2021

B number: 
B3433
Principal applicant name: 
Plancoulaine | INSERM (France)
Co-applicants: 
Kathrin Gürlich, Reynaud Eve, PhD, Veit Grote, MD
Title of project: 
Longitudinal association between sleep at age 3 and behavior and cognition from ages 4 to 6 years in Lifecycle cohorts
Proposal summary: 

Mental health problems in children are considered to be one of the biggest challenges of the current century. The onset of many behavioral and cognitive problems is found to be in childhood with trajectories into adulthood. There is a growing body of evidence that insufficient sleep and sleep difficulties are associated with an increased risk of behavioral problems and cognitive difficulties in school-aged children. Compared to the literature in school-aged children relating sleep to child behavior or cognition, little is known in preschoolers. in a systematic review, we showed that a longer sleep duration and a higher quality of sleep in preschoolers were associated with better behavioral and cognitive outcomes. However, small sample sizes and small number of publications limit the validity of the results. Furthermore, longitudinal studies are rare.

Impact of research: 
Very few studies with rather small sample sizes have previously examined the longitudinal association between sleep and behavior or cognition in preschool children as we recently reported in a systematic review. With combining the large amount of available data from six European birth cohorts in our analyses (with an individual meta-analysis using DataShield), we are using an innovative approach to fill knowledge gaps and bring new insight into this research field.
Date proposal received: 
Monday, 16 December, 2019
Date proposal approved: 
Monday, 6 January, 2020
Keywords: 
Epidemiology, Behaviour - e.g. antisocial behaviour, risk behaviour, etc., Statistical methods, Sleep