The Rate Of Insufficient Sleep In Every US County, Mapped

​Getting seven hours of sleep at night is often defined as a threshold for obtaining a healthy, sufficient amount of sleep. Unfortunately, for many counties in the US, that threshold is one that eludes them and they're not receiving enough sleep.

Using data from County Healthy Rankings, writer Bo McCready has created a graph that shows the rate of insufficient sleep in every US county (for an interactive version of the graph, see here). In his graph, he also marked the positive correlation between the rate of insufficient sleep and other health indicators, such as mental illness, obesity and smoking rates.

Many factors may have contributed to the reasons why certain counties in the US are receiving less sleep than others. One of them may be poverty. As other Reddit users have pointed out, there is a great degree of similarity between this sleep graph and maps showing the poverty rate of US counties, as seen below:

It's not a flawless overlay though, and it would seem that poverty alone may not be enough to explain why some counties suffer from a lack of sleep. Insufficient sleep can also be attributed to causes such as light pollution, commute time, nightlife and the nature of the dominant industries and occupations in the county, with some may demanding more long hours of work than others.

And if you've noticed that Hawaii and Alaska are missing from the graph and are curious about the sleeping stats in the two states, here's an infographic from the CDC that shows the prevalence of insufficient sleep in every county in 2014:

[Via Reddit]