Shift Work, Sleep and Health

20 Sep 2018 01:26 PM

A POSTnote that describes how working outside of daytime hours – shift work – affects physical and mental health and performance through its impact on sleep and circadian timing. It highlights the latest research, explains the implications for policy and how research can inform the design of interventions to improve shift workers' sleep and overall health.

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Overview

Sleep is essential and interacts with many bodily systems. Two biological processes regulate the duration, quality and timing of sleep and determine chronotype (one’s measurable degree of "morningness" or "eveningness"):

Shift Work, Sleep and Health

Shift work – including night work and long working hours – is common to many sectors, with night workers comprising 12% of the UK workforce. Shift work can disrupt sleep and circadian timing, which can affect health and performance and increase the risk of accidents. Reducing its impact is a potential way to improve public health, health and safety in the workplace, and increase productivity.

Shift workers tend to have increased sleepiness during night shifts, and shorter and poorer quality sleep during the day. Chronic sleep and circadian disruptions can result in a diagnosis of shift work sleep disorder, which affects 10–30% of shift workers. Sleep and circadian disruptions are associated with a range of short- and long-term health effects in shift workers.

Shift work is common in healthcare, manufacturing, transport, communications, emergency services, security, entertainment and service industries, among others.

Policy Implications

Key areas for policy discussed in the briefing include:

Key Points in the POSTnote:

POSTnotes are based on literature reviews and interviews with a range of stakeholders and are externally peer reviewed. POST would like to thank interviewees and peer reviewers for kindly giving up their time during the preparation of this briefing, including:

 *denotes people who acted as external reviewers of the briefing.