Key Research

A list of key articles to inform discussion; Updated periodically as new key studies are published.


Suggestion: To view more recent publications that reference the works below, copy/paste the reference of interest into Google Scholar and select "Cited by [#]" at the bottom of search result.

Systematic Reviews of Research on Sleep and School Start Times

Marx, R., Tanner‐Smith, E. E., Davison, C. M., Ufholz, L. A., Freeman, J., Shankar, R., ... & Hendrikx, S. (2017). Later school start times for supporting the education, health, and well‐being of high school students. The Cochrane Library. https://campbellcollaboration.org/media/k2/attachments/0099_ECG_Later_school_start_times.pdf

Morgenthaler, T. I., Hashmi, S., Croft, J. B., Dort, L., Heald, J. L., & Mullington, J. (2016). High school start times and the impact on high school students: what we know, and what we hope to learn. Journal of clinical sleep medicine: JCSM: official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 12(12), 1681. 10.5664/jcsm.6358

Commentary:

Owens, J., Troxel, W., & Wahlstrom, K. (2017). Commentary on healthy school start times. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 13(05), 761-761. http://jcsm.aasm.org/viewabstract.aspx?pid=31020

Response:

Morgenthaler, T. I., Dort, L., & Mullington, J. (2017). Transparency and Partnership. Journal of clinical sleep medicine: JCSM: official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 13(5), 763-763. http://europepmc.org/articles/pmc5406949

Wheaton, A. G., Chapman, D. P., & Croft, J. B. (2016). School start times, sleep, behavioral, health, and academic outcomes: a review of the literature. Journal of School Health, 86(5), 363-381. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4824552/

Selected School Start Time Research

An extensive bibliography of sleep and school start time research is maintained by StartSchoolLater.net, which, until recently, was freely available. See www.startschoollater.net/become-a-member.html for details on gaining access via membership.

Dunietz, G. L., Matos-Moreno, A., Singer, D. C., Davis, M. M., O'Brien, L. M., & Chervin, R. D. (2017). Later school start times: what informs parent support or opposition?. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine: JCSM: Official Publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 13(7), 889. 10.5664/jcsm.6660

Edwards, F. (2012). Early to rise? The effect of daily start times on academic performance. Economics of Education Review, 31(6), 970-983. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272775712000830

Publically-available article and 15-minute podcast on the results and implications of this study available at: https://www.educationnext.org/do-schools-begin-too-early/

Keller, P. S., Gilbert, L. R., Haak, E. A., Bi, S., & Smith, O. A. (2017). Earlier school start times are associated with higher rates of behavioral problems in elementary schools. Sleep health, 3(2), 113-118.

Nahmod, N.G., Lee, S., Master, L., Change, A. M., Hale, L., & Buston, O.M. (2018). Later high school start times associated with longer actigraphic sleep duration in adolescents. Sleep, 42(2), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsy212

Owens, J., Drobnich, D., Baylor, A., & Lewin, D. (2014). School start time change: an in‐depth examination of school districts in the United States. Mind, Brain, and Education, 8(4), 182-213. https://doi.org/10.1111/mbe.12059

Thacher, P. V., & Onyper, S. V. (2016). Longitudinal outcomes of start time delay on sleep, behavior, and achievement in high school. Sleep, 39(2), 271-281. https://doi.org/10.5665/sleep.5426

Selected Sleep Health Research

Fischer, D., Lombardi, D.A., Marucci-Wellman, H. M., & Roenneberg, T., (2017). Chronotypes in the US -Influence of age and sex. PLOS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0178782.

Keyes, K. M., Maslowsky, J., Hamilton, A., & Schulenberg, J. (2015). The great sleep recession: changes in sleep duration among US adolescents, 1991–2012. Pediatrics, 135(3), 460-468. DOI: 10.1542/peds.2014-2707

Mathew, G. M., Hale, L., & Chang, A.-M. (2019). Sex Moderates Relationships Among School Night Sleep Duration, Social Jetlag, and Depressive Symptoms in Adolescents. Journal of Biological Rhythms. https://doi.org/10.1177/0748730419828102