BACKGROUND
The political will of politicians to act in the best interests of the populace's health, or lack thereof, has a significant impact on disease outcomes. The partisan divide that exists in the United States of America influenced the implementation and adherence to public health policies enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic.
OBJECTIVE
The objective of this study is to use zero-effort technology to analyze the impact of politically driven social restrictions during the pandemic on population-level sleep duration, a critical modifiable risk factor.
METHODS
For this study, 4405 households were selected from different political-leaning cities in California (Democratic) and Texas (Republic) using the USA dataset from the DYD (Donate your Data) initiative of ecobee, a smart thermostat company. The data were stratified based on time, geolocation, and political affiliation, and filtered into two categories: "Before" the pandemic (March 2019 to Feb 2020) and "During" the pandemic (March 2020 to Feb 2021). The average sleep duration was quantified by identifying the daily sleep cycles through sensor activation.
RESULTS
Overall, the findings show a significant decrease in the average sleep duration at the population level after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Cities under Democratic governance at the time of the pandemic consistently showed a decrease in sleep duration “During” the pandemic compared to “Before” the pandemic. The impact of the pandemic in Republican cities on sleep duration was much more variable.
CONCLUSIONS
Political affiliation, as it pertains to the implementation and adherence to public health policies during the COVID-19 pandemic, can impact population health indicators such as sleep. The use of IoT data and innovative analytics represents a novel method to objectively monitor, promote, and improve population behaviours. These zero-effort technologies have the potential to provide real-time insights into public health and drive health policy.