Insights into the Public Health Burden of Insomnia

A QUICK SEARCH OF PUBMED WITH THE TERM INSOM-NIA YIELDS MORE THAN 8000 SCIENTIFIC CITATIONS, THE VAST MAJORITY OF WHICH WERE published after 1980. One might think that this amount of scientific and academic attention would have produced rather significant progress toward understanding insomnia. Yet we continue to struggle with the most basic of questions about the definition, prevalence, patho-physiology, and consequences of and treatments for this disorder (symptom? illness? complaint? syndrome? condition?). One need only to read the 2003 National Sleep Disorders Research Plan