Publications by Author: Buxton, Orfeu M

Study Objectives: Sleep disorders and sleep deficiency can increase the risk for cardiovascular disease. Less is known about whether multiple positive attributes of sleep health known as the SATED (satisfaction, alertness, timing, efficiency, and duration) model, can decrease future cardiovascular disease risks. We examined whether and how a variety of indicators of sleep health predicted 10-year estimated cardiometabolic risk scores (CRS) among employed adults.

Methods: Workers in two industries—extended care (n = 1,275) and information technology (IT; n = 577)—reported on habitual sleep apnea symptoms and sleep sufficiency, and provided 1 week of actigraphy data including nighttime sleep duration, wake after sleep onset (WASO), sleep timing, and daytime napping. Workers also provided biomarkers to calculate future cardiometabolic risk.

Results: More sleep apnea symptoms predicted higher CRS in both industries. More sleep sufficiency, less WASO, and less daytime napping (having no naps, fewer naps, and shorter nap duration) were also linked to lower CRS, but only in the extended care workers. There was no effect of sleep duration in both industries. In the IT employee sample, shorter sleep duration (≤ 6 hours versus 6–8 hours) and more naps strengthened the link between sleep apnea and CRS.

Conclusions: Sleep health, measured by both subjective and objective methods, was associated with lower cardiometabolic disease risks among extended care workers (lower to middle wage workers). Sleep apnea was an important predictor of CRS; for the IT workers, the link between sleep apnea and CRS was exacerbated when they had poorer sleep health behaviors.

We draw on panel data from a randomized field experiment to assess the effects of a flexibility/supervisor support initiative called STAR on turnover intentions and voluntary turnover among professional technical workers in a large firm. An unanticipated exogenous shock—the announcement of an impending merger—occurred in the middle of data collection. Both organizational changes reflect an emerging employment contract characterized by increasing employee temporal flexibility even as employers wield greater flexibility in reorganizing their workforces. We theorized STAR would reduce turnover intentions and actual turnover by making it more attractive to stay with the current employer. We found being in a STAR team (versus a usual practice team) lowered turnover intentions 12 months later and reduced the risk of voluntary turnover over almost three years. We also examined potential mechanisms accounting for the effects of these two organizational changes; STAR effects on reducing turnover intentions are partially mediated by reducing work-to-family conflict, family-to-work conflict, burnout, psychological distress, perceived stress, and increasing job satisfaction. The effect of learning about the merger on increasing turnover intentions is fully mediated by increased job insecurity. STAR also moderates the negative effects of learning about the merger on turnover intentions for different subgroups. Findings provide insights into the effectiveness of an organizational intervention, the dynamics of organizations, and how competing logics of two organizational changes affect employees’ labor market expectations and behavior.

Sleep can serve as both cause and consequence of individuals’ everyday experiences. We built upon prior studies of the correlates of sleep, which have relied primarily on cross-sectional data, to examine the antecedents and consequences of sleep using a daily diary design. Specifically, we assessed the temporal sequence between nightly sleep and daily psychosocial stressors. Parents employed in a US information technology company (n = 102) completed eight consecutive daily diaries at both baseline and 1 year later. In telephone interviews each evening, participants reported on the previous night's sleep hours, sleep quality and sleep latency. They also reported daily work-to-family conflict and time inadequacy (i.e. perceptions of not having enough time) for their child and for themselves to engage in exercise. Multi-level models testing lagged and non-lagged effects simultaneously revealed that sleep hours and sleep quality were associated with next-day consequences of work-to-family conflict and time inadequacy, whereas psychosocial stressors as antecedents did not predict sleep hours or quality that night. For sleep latency, the opposite temporal order emerged: on days with more work-to-family conflict or time inadequacy for child and self than usual, participants reported longer sleep latencies than usual. An exception to this otherwise consistent pattern was that time inadequacy for child also preceded shorter sleep hours and poorer sleep quality that night. The results highlight the utility of a daily diary design for capturing the temporal sequences linking sleep and psychosocial stressors.