Abstract Introduction Temperature is an important environmental component for sleep health, with both cold and hot temperatures linked to adverse sleep outcomes. More extreme temperatures, including hotter nights, are expected to become more frequent with climate change. Here, we investigated whether sensor-measured indoor household temperature and self-reported perceptions were associated with measures of sleep health. Methods We completed a community-based pilot study (“Tracking TEMP”) of Atlanta-area adult residents in the summer of 2025 (May-August). During the study, participants were provided with wrist-worn actigraphy devices (ActLumus, Condor Inst.) and stationary indoor temperature monitors (HOBO devices) and asked to complete a daily sleep diary over a 2-day measurement period. Participants also completed surveys that collected demographic, sleep, and residential information, including their perception of household temperature for that summer (too cool, too warm, or “just right”). Analyses evaluated whether daily pre-sleep average indoor temperatures or self-reported perception of household temperature were associated with sleep efficiency, wake after sleep onset (WASO), onset latency, sleep onset time, or sleep duration in mixed models. Secondary analyses evaluated whether daily light exposure was associated with household temperature perception. Results Among the 46 participants with multi-day sleep and actigraphy measures and survey data, indoor pre-sleep temperatures ranged from 17.5 to 30.1C. Higher objectively-measured indoor pre-sleep temperature was associated with worse sleep efficiency (β=-0.8, p 0.05) and hotter perceived household temperature was associated with longer WASO duration (β=20.4 minutes, p 0.05) and fragmentation amount, but not other sleep measures. Perception of household temperature as either too cool or too warm (compared to “just right”) was also associated with lower average daily light exposure (β=-0.2 log10-lux, p 0.05). Conclusion In this preliminary analysis of real-world data, actual and perceived household temperatures were associated with different sleep health outcomes. Likewise, temperature perception may be associated with light exposure, either through light’s effects on temperature regulation or as a marker of time in outdoor environments and temperature habituation. Work is ongoing to evaluate the influences of other environmental and demographic factors as well as daytime heat exposure on sleep health. Support (if any) Pilot award from the Emory Climate & Health Actionable Research and Translation Center (CHART) NIEHS P20ES036110
Wallace et al. (Fri,) studied this question.