Fig. 1.

Hypothetical Model of Sleep Pathways to Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Disease. Few studies suggest inflammatory markers, genes, anatomy, and sleep architecture may vary between ethnic groups and mediate differential sleep pathways that have a bidirectional causal relationship to various diseases. Socioeconomic factors, gender, and age are variables that affect sleep quality and duration. Future research is needed to determine if these variables are associated with or are causes of physiologically or genetically mediated sleep pathways.