On a typical school night, high school students who averaged less than six hours of sleep a night reported thinking of and attempting suicide far more often than their longer-sleeping peers, according to nationwide survey data. That finding has major public health repercussions since the data also indicated that more than 70 percent of high school students get less than the 8 to 10 hours of sleep they need for optimal mental and physical health. Matthew Weaver, Ph.D., an associate epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and colleagues analyzed data provided by 67,615 U.S. high school students who responded to Youth Risk Behavior Surveys (YRBS) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) between February 2007 and May 2015. Respondents comprised a nationally representative sample of students enrolled in ninth to 12th grades in U.S. public and private schools. Nearly all were age 14 years or older. The students completed the anonymous surveys in their classrooms. For more information, please visit https://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.pn.2018.11b24.

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