In January, AASM and Sleep Research Society (SRS) submitted a joint comment to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) regarding its draft National Prevention Strategy. The comment advised that the strategy’s Strategic Directions should be expanded to include healthy sleep, recognizing the reality of poor sleep as a readily identifiable and modifiable risk factor associated with the leading causes of death.

Last week the AASM submitted a comment to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) regarding its draft technology assessment (TA), “Lifestyle Interventions for Four Conditions: Type 2 Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome, Breast Cancer, and Prostate Cancer.” The AASM expressed concern that the TA only looked at the relationship between physical activity and diet as modifiable risk factors that may impact onset or progression of disease, ignoring the well-established relationship between sleep and diabetes and metabolic syndrome. The AASM strongly encouraged consideration of sleep modification as an integral lifestyle element that needs to be incorporated in the TA and added as a related topic for future research.