A social-ecological examination of sleep among Airmen in technical training

ABSTRACT

Inadequate sleep is an on-going risk to the health and mission readiness of U.S. Armed Forces, with estimates of sleep problems high above U.S. civilian populations. Intervening early in the career of active duty Air Force personnel (or “Airmen”) with education and the establishment of healthy behaviors may prevent short and long term-detriments of sleep problems. This paper describes the results of a qualitative study seeking to understand the facilitators and barriers to achieving good sleep in a technical training school during the first year of entry into the United States Air Force. Using the social ecological framework and content analysis, three focus groups with Airmen were conducted to explore themes at the individual, social, environmental, and organizational/policy level. Overall, results indicated a cohort motivated to achieve good sleep, and also struggling with a number of barriers across each level. This paper highlights opportunities for population health interventions during technical training aimed at supporting Airmen in developing healthy sleep behaviors early in the course of their career.

KEYWORDS:

• Sleep
• United States Air Force
• qualitative
• training
• socio-ecological model

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, JME, upon reasonable request.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.