Nightshift imposes irregular lifestyle behaviors in police academy trainees.
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2023-01
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Abstract
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Shiftwork increases risk for numerous chronic diseases, which is hypothesized to be linked to disruption of circadian timing of lifestyle behaviors. However, empirical data on timing of lifestyle behaviors in real-world shift workers are lacking. To address this, we characterized the regularity of timing of lifestyle behaviors in shift-working police trainees.Methods
Using a two-group observational study design (N = 18), we compared lifestyle behavior timing during 6 weeks of in-class training during dayshift, followed by 6 weeks of field-based training during either dayshift or nightshift. Lifestyle behavior timing, including sleep-wake patterns, physical activity, and meals, was captured using wearable activity trackers and mobile devices. The regularity of lifestyle behavior timing was quantified as an index score, which reflects day-to-day stability on a 24-hour time scale: Sleep Regularity Index, Physical Activity Regularity Index, and Mealtime Regularity Index. Logistic regression was applied to these indices to develop a composite score, termed the Behavior Regularity Index (BRI).Results
Transitioning from dayshift to nightshift significantly worsened the BRI, relative to maintaining a dayshift schedule. Specifically, nightshift led to more irregular sleep-wake timing and meal timing; physical activity timing was not impacted. In contrast, maintaining a dayshift schedule did not impact regularity indices.Conclusions
Nightshift imposed irregular timing of lifestyle behaviors, which is consistent with the hypothesis that circadian disruption contributes to chronic disease risk in shift workers. How to mitigate the negative impact of shiftwork on human health as mediated by irregular timing of sleep-wake patterns and meals deserves exploration.Type
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Erickson, Melissa L, Rebecca North, Julie Counts, Will Wang, Kathryn N Porter Starr, Laurie Wideman, Carl Pieper, Jessilyn Dunn, et al. (2023). Nightshift imposes irregular lifestyle behaviors in police academy trainees. Sleep advances : a journal of the Sleep Research Society, 4(1). p. zpad038. 10.1093/sleepadvances/zpad038 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/29451.
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Scholars@Duke

Rebecca North
Rebecca North, PhD
Dr. North is a collaborative biostatistician who lets clinical application drive methodological innovation. This has been true since graduate school at NC State University, where her dissertation focused on variable selection methods for functional data for the purpose of identifying a sparse set of electromyogram signals that would accurately predict the velocity of a prosthetic arm. Also while in graduate school, Dr. North was supported by a T32 Traineeship, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Integrated Biostatistical Training Program for Cardiovascular Disease Research, through which she gained clinical research experience at the Duke Clinical Research Institute with particular focus on atrial fibrillation research.
Since joining the Duke Aging Center, Dr. North has gained statistical experience in latent class analysis, mediation analysis, and meta-analysis, to add to her knowledge of functional data analysis, variable selection techniques, random forests and decision trees, survival analysis, longitudinal data analysis, and other classical frequentist statistical methods. Her clinical areas of interest include circadian rhythm research, cardiovascular research (particularly atrial fibrillation), and Veteran health.

Carl F. Pieper
Analytic Interests.
1) Issues in the Design of Medical Experiments: I explore the use of reliability/generalizability models in experimental design. In addition to incorporation of reliability, I study powering longitudinal trials with multiple outcomes and substantial missing data using Mixed models.
2) Issues in the Analysis of Repeated Measures Designs & Longitudinal Data: Use of Hierarchical Linear Models (HLM) or Mixed Models in modeling trajectories of multiple variables over time (e.g., physical and cognitive functioning and Blood Pressure). My current work involves methodologies in simultaneous estimation of trajectories for multiple variables within and between domains, modeling co-occuring change.
Areas of Substantive interest: (1) Experimental design and analysis in gerontology and geriatrics, and psychiatry,
(2) Multivariate repeated measures designs,

Jessilyn Dunn
Developing new tools and infrastructure for multi-modal biomedical data integration to drive precision/personalized methods for early detection, intervention, and prevention of disease.

William Erle Kraus
My training, expertise and research interests range from human integrative physiology and genetics to animal exercise models to cell culture models of skeletal muscle adaptation to mechanical stretch. I am trained clinically as an internist and preventive cardiologist, with particular expertise in preventive cardiology and cardiac rehabilitation. My research training spans molecular biology and cell culture, molecular genetics, and integrative human exercise physiology and metabolism. I practice as a preventive cardiologist with a focus on cardiometabolic risk and exercise physiology for older athletes. My research space has both a basic wet laboratory component and a human integrative physiology one.
One focus of our work is an integrative physiologic examination of exercise effects in human subjects in clinical studies of exercise training in normal individuals, in individuals at risk of disease (such as pre-diabetes and metabolic syndrome; STRRIDE), and in individuals with disease (such as coronary heart disease, congestive heart failure and cancer).
A second focus of my research group is exploration of genetic determinates of disease risk in human subjects. We conduct studies of early onset cardiovascular disease (GENECARD; CATHGEN), congestive heart failure (HF-ACTION), peripheral arterial disease (AMNESTI), and metabolic syndrome. We are exploring analytic models of predicting disease risk using established and innovative statistical methodology.
A third focus of my group’s work is to understand the cellular signaling mechanisms underlying the normal adaptive responses of skeletal muscle to physiologic stimuli, such as occur in exercise conditioning, and to understand the abnormal maladaptive responses that occur in response to pathophysiologic stimuli, such as occur in congestive heart failure, aging and prolonged exposure to microgravity.
Recently we have begun to investigate interactions of genes and lifestyle interventions on cardiometabolic outcomes. We have experience with clinical lifestyle intervention studies, particularly the contributions of genetic variants to interventions responses. We call this Lifestyle Medicopharmacogenetics.
KEY WORDS:
exercise, skeletal muscle, energy metabolism, cell signaling, gene expression, cell stretch, heart failure, aging, spaceflight, human genetics, early onset cardiovascular disease, lifestyle medicine
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