Chronic sleep loss and untreated sleep disorders are a serious public health concern — and it is time to attack them with the same urgency as campaigns against smoking, drunk driving and obesity, experts said at a recent meeting on sleep and sleep disorders at the National Institutes of Health.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has estimated that 1 percent to 4 percent of highway crashes and 4 percent of fatal crashes are caused by sleepiness. Many sleep researchers think those numbers are too low.