The cost of poor sleep in the portuguese economy

Abstract

Sleep is a basic human need and is essential for an individual’s attention, social relationships and the execution of simple or complex tasks (Valente et al., 2019) and one of the main purposes of sleep is to repair possible damage from an individual’s day to day (Adam &Oswald, 1977). However, poor sleep is a public health problem affecting a great number of people, which can be a consequence of clinical sleep disorders, such as Obstructive Sleep Apnea and Insomnia, and a consequence of sleep restrictions that are related either to work or lifestyle. Therefore, there is both a human cost and an economic cost associated with it, which makes it important to analyze as political decisions are mainly based on numbers and economic data. It is estimated that Portugal has an annual cost of 4.1 billion euros due to excessive daytime sleepiness, which is associated with other conditions that have been considered in this study (i.e. Congestive heart failure, Coronary artery disease, Cerebrovascular disease, Depression, Type 2 Diabetes, Workplace injury and Motor vehicleaccidents). These costs were obtained by a Population Attributable Fraction (PAF) calculation and the incidence of the considered conditions in Portugal as well as the prevalence of Obstructive Sleep Apnea (0.89%) and Insomnia (28.1%) in Portugal. Other statistical analyses were conducted, in order to obtain the costs not only for excessivedaytime sleepiness, but also for the conditions studied in this dissertation. Conclusions thatcan be made, are the fact that Portugal, having a population of only 10 million people, has higher estimated costs attributed to sleep when compared with other countries, such Spainor Australia.

Date of Award	12 Jan 2022
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Cátia Reis (Supervisor)