Ethnic and racial discrimination and sleep among black college students: The moderating role of public regard

Sleep health is a critical during emerging adulthood, yet Black college students face pronounced sleep disparities. Ethnic and racial discrimination is a salient daily stressor that may contribute to these disparities, while public regard (i.e., positive beliefs about how others view one's ethnic-racial group) may shape students' responses to discrimination. Utilizing a 14-day daily dairy design, this study examined the moderating role of public regard in the daily associations between ethnic and racial discrimination and actigraphy-measured sleep among 168 first-year Black American college students. The results of multilevel modeling showed that on days when students reported ethnic and racial discrimination, they slept longer, spent more time in bed, went to sleep earlier, and had greater wake after sleep onset. No between-person effects emerged. Public regard moderated the daily association between ethnic and racial discrimination and sleep duration, total sleep time in bed, onset time, and wake minutes after sleep onset. That is, for Black students with low public regard, daily experiences of ethnic and racial discrimination were associated with longer sleep duration, more time in bed, and earlier sleep onset and more sleep interruptions. In contrast, for students with high levels of public regard (i.e., those who believed that others view Black Americans more positively), daily ethnic and racial discrimination was not significantly associated with this set of sleep outcomes. Findings underscore the nuanced role of identity-related beliefs in shaping daily sleep processes and highlight public regard as a meaningful sociocognitive factor in understanding sleep health disparities among Black college students.