Metropolitan urban hotspots of chronic sleep deprivation: evidence from a community health survey in Gyeongbuk Province, South Korea

The geographic concentration of chronic sleep deprivation (CSD) remains largely unexplored. This paper examined the community-specific spatial pattern of the prevalence of CSD and the presence of clustered spatial hotspots among the Korean elderly population in Gyeongbuk Province, South Korea, revealing CSD hotspots and underscoring the importance of geography-focused prevention strategies. The study analysed cross-sectional data collected from 9847 elderly individuals aged 60 years and older who participated in a Korean Community Health Survey conducted in 2012. To assess the level of spatial dependence, an exploratory spatial data analysis was conducted using Global Moran's I statistic and the local indicator of spatial association. The results revealed marked geographic variations in CSD prevalence ranging from 33.4 to 73.4%, with higher values in the metropolitan urban areas and lower in the rural areas. Almost half of the community residents [both men (44.1%) and women (53.5%)] slept 6 h or less per 24 h. The average CSD prevalence (53.6% men and 65.1% women) in the hotspots was about 13.0% higher than that in other areas (42.6% for men and 51.1% for women). To our knowledge, this is the first study to generate a CSD hotspot map that includes data on sleep deprivation across metropolitan district levels. This study demonstrates that not only is sleep deprivation distributed differentially across communities but these differences may be explained by urbanisation.