Associations of Actigraphy-Assessed Sleep with Hemodynamic Burden in Black Emerging Adults

Purpose: Compared to age-matched individuals from other racial groups, Black emerging adults (ages 18–28) are at the highest risk for short sleep duration and elevated cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors (e.g., hypertension). Insufficient sleep (e.g., short sleep duration, poor sleep efficiency) is linked to an increased CVD risk. Yet in Black emerging adults, data on sleep and hemodynamic burden, an important clinical marker of CVD risk, is limited. Therefore, we used a preliminary, cross-sectional analysis to determine whether actigraphy (AG)-derived short sleep duration (<7hrs) and poor sleep efficiency (<85%) are associated with increased hemodynamic burden in Black emerging adults. Methods: Data collection for the Sleep, Health Outcomes and Body Weight (SHOW) study is ongoing. This analysis includes 11 Black emerging adults (age=20.7±1.4 years; body mass index (BMI)=26.0±8.6 kg/m 2 ; 7 females). Data on AG-assessed sleep measures (mean sleep duration and sleep efficiency) over 7 days, as well as measures of hemodynamic burden (resting brachial systolic, mean, and diastolic blood pressure (BP), resting estimated aortic systolic and diastolic BP, pulse pressure, resting heart rate, pulse wave velocity, central augmentation pressure, and augmentation index) are presented herein. Spearman correlations assessed associations between sleep and hemodynamic burden. Correlation coefficients (ρ) determined strength of associations. Significance was pre-set as p-value <0.1 with a medium-large effect size (r >0.3) for these exploratory analyses. Results: Mean sleep duration was 6.5±0.98 hours/night and mean sleep efficiency was 76.2±6.7%. Sleep duration was moderately associated with resting heart rate (ρ= -0.446, p=0.09). Similarly, moderate associations were noted between sleep efficiency and pulse pressure (ρ= 0.342, p=0.15). All other measures of hemodynamic burden were not associated with either sleep outcome. Conclusion: These preliminary data suggest that longer sleep duration, but not greater sleep efficiency may be protective against increased hemodynamic burden in Black emerging adults. Supported by NIH Grant R01HL163804 This abstract was presented at the American Physiology Summit 2025 and is only available in HTML format. There is no downloadable file or PDF version. The Physiology editorial board was not involved in the peer review process.