NIH Awards Bruzzese $8M for Sleep Health Study

Professor Jean-Marie Bruzzese, PhD has received a five-year grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute for a clinical trial of her Sleeping Healthy, Living Healthy intervention. 

She and her colleagues plan to enroll nearly 300 New York City public high school students in the study and will follow them for a year to measure effects on their sleep health and stress levels.  

"We developed this intervention for and with urban adolescents," Bruzzese said. "It consists of teaching them good sleep behaviors as well as mind-body techniques that have been shown in adults to improve sleep by reducing stress." 

Delivered in six 30- to 40-minute group sessions, Sleeping Healthy, Living Healthy combines instruction on "sleep busters" like too much noise and "sleep helpers," such as a consistent sleep-wake routine, with instruction on six mind-body techniques. "Having the two together we think is going to have this synergistic effect," Bruzzese explains. 

The new study expands on a pilot study in 61 adolescents with poor sleep health funded by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, which found the intervention improved sleep and reduced stress.  

"We are testing the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of the intervention and identifying factors associated with implementing the intervention, which will inform models to sustain the intervention after the grant," Bruzzese said.