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U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion

Increase the proportion of children who get sufficient sleep — EMC‑03 Data Methodology and Measurement

On this page:  About this objective  |  Methodology  |  History

About this objective

Data

Data Source:  National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH), HRSA/MCHB

National baseline: 65.9 percent of children aged 4 months to 14 years got sufficient sleep based on parent report in 2016-17

National target: 70.6 percent

Numerator
Number of children aged 4 months to 14 years who receive sufficient sleep based on parent report (defined as 12 or more hours for children aged 4 months to 1 year, 11 or more hours for children aged 1 to 2 years, 10 or more hours for children aged 3 to 5 years, 9 or more hours for children aged 6 to 12 years, and 8 or more hours for children aged 13 to 14 years).
Denominator
Number of children aged 4 months to 14 years.
National target-setting method
Percentage point improvement
National target-setting method details
Percentage point improvement from the baseline using Cohen's h effect size of 0.10.
1
National target-setting method justification
Trend data were not available for this objective. A percentage point improvement was calculated using Cohen's h effect size of 0.1. This method was used because only baseline data were available. While Healthy People targets are applicable at the national level, this target will remain more stable when calculating targets by state.

Methodology

Questions used to obtain the national baseline data

(For additional information, please visit the data source page linked above.)

From the 2016 and 2017 National Survey of Children's Health:

Numerator and Denominator:
For ages 0-5:
DURING THE PAST WEEK, how many hours of sleep did this child get during an average day (count both nighttime sleep and naps)?
  1. Less than 7 hours
  2. 7 hours
  3. 8 hours
  4. 9 hours
  5. 10 hours
  6. 11 hours
  7. 12 or more hours
For ages 6-17:
DURING THE PAST WEEK, how many hours of sleep did this child get on an average weeknight?
  1. Less than 6 hours
  2. 6 hours
  3. 7 hours
  4. 8 hours
  5. 9 hours
  6. 10 hours
  7. 11 or more hours

Methodology notes

Questions are age specific based on the recommendations for sufficient sleep for children less than 5 years of age, which include nap and nighttime sleep. For children aged 6-17 years the question addresses nighttime sleep, based on the guidelines. Sufficient sleep is defined as 12 or more hours for ages 4 months -1 year, 11 or more hours for ages 1-2 years, 10 or more hours for ages 3-5 years, 9 or more hours for ages 6-12 years, and 8 or more hours for ages 13-14 years. For more information see the link to CDC's How Much Sleep Do I Need?

https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/about/#cdc_behavioral_basics_quick-getting-enough-sleep

History

Comparable HP2020 objective
Related, which includes objectives that have the same or a similar intent to either a measurable or developmental/archived objective in Healthy People 2020.
Revision History
Revised. 

In April 2024, imputation and weighting by race and ethnicity were revised for the 2022 National Survey of Children's Health. To ensure comparability for trending, these changes were applied retroactively to data from the NSCH from 2016 through 2021 also. The baseline and target values did not change.

1. Effect size h=0.1 was chosen to correspond with 10% improvement from a baseline of 50%.