Impact case study database

1. Informing national and international legislation on school start times

USA

School start times for middle- and high-school children can be as early as 7:00 am and have been linked to weaker academic performance, more car accidents, and increased absenteeism and exclusions. Our research [R4] informed the Californian State Bill (No. 328, Portantino) requiring California’s middle and high schools to begin school no earlier than 8:30 am. The Bill’s proposer, State Senator Anthony Portantino, told the New York Times that the Bill's benefits would include “better grades, reduced risk of depression and fewer vehicle accidents – that he said was borne out by research” [S1]. Supported by the American Academy of Pediatricians and the Centres for Disease Control, the State Bill was passed by Senate on August 31, 2018 and must be implemented in all California middle- and high-schools by July 1, 2021 [S2], directly impacting three-million school children. Our research also informed accompanying debates held in 2017 and was quoted in the Senate Bill Policy Committee’s analysis conducted in 2019 for the amended Bill [S3].

UK

An online petition titled ‘School should start at 10 am as teenagers are too tired ’ was started in November 2018 and rapidly exceeded the threshold to trigger a Parliamentary debate (179,000 signatures). This debate, ‘ Secondary School Opening Hours’, took place on 11 February 2019. Our research [R4] and accompanying Press Release titled ‘Mathematicians predict delaying school start times won’t help sleep deprived teenagers ’ were included in the Debate Pack [S4] provided to MPs. Our conclusion that “[our] model suggests that an alternative remedy to moving school start times in the UK is exposure to bright light during the day, turning the lights down in the evening and off at night” was explicitly highlighted for MPs [S4, pp.6]. During the debate [see transcript, S5], Martyn Day (MP Linlithgow and East Falkirk, SNP) cited our conclusion by way of opposition, adding our further conclusion that “ … body clocks would drift even later in response to later start times, and, in a matter of weeks, [adolescents] would find it just as hard to get out of bed.” Nick Gibb (The Minister for School Standards) also cited our research as he spoke in opposition to the proposed delay to school start times, stating, “The mathematical model showed that delaying school start times in the UK would not help reduce sleep deprivation” and “The mathematical model shows that the problem for adolescents is that their light consumption behaviour interferes with their natural interaction with the environmental clock – getting up late in the morning results in adolescents keeping the lights on until later at night. ” However, Mr Gibb did acknowledge that our results “lend some support to delaying school start in the US,” where start times are earlier than the typical UK start time. The final response from the Government was that “The Department [for School Standards] has no plans to require secondary schools to start later .” A decision that aligns with our research findings.

2. Informing public debate on permanent daylight-saving time

Our paper [R5] has been cited frequently in international debates on daylight-saving, News Media: 20 news stories, including Fox, CNN, and shared 129 times via Social Media: including 33 Facebook pages; 96 Twitter Tweets. It has also been used by the Save Standard Time Campaign in California to support their position [S6]. Skeldon was invited to co-author the Op-Ed article ‘How New York should lock the clock: don’t switch to daylight saving time, ditch it and stick with standard time’ published in the New York Daily News (daily circulation ~200,000), which warned that the proposed permanent change to daylight saving would have a negative effect on the health of 19.5 million New Yorkers [S7]. In a May 2019 CNN interview, Assemblyman Kansen Chu – who proposed the California permanent daylight saving bill (AB7) – was countered by the interviewer, who asked Chu to comment on the findings of Skeldon and Dijk's research [R5]. Later in September 2019, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Chu “is now considering a proposal for year-round standard time instead.” [S8]

3. Impact on shift working patterns

On-call shifts are common in the utilities and transport industries. These shifts involve engineers working a standard (9am-5 pm) day, then subsequently working out-of-hours call-outs in response to urgent or unpredictable situations (i.e., gas leaks). An on-call worker may receive no call-outs or several, taking varying times to resolve. This unpredictability makes it challenging to model potential sleep deprivation and effectively manage employee working schedules, resulting in a health and safety risk. Existing Health and Safety Executive (HSE) Risk Tools are based on fixed shift working patterns.

Since 2019, Skeldon has worked with Scotia Gas Network (SGN) who provide gas to 5.9 million homes/businesses in the South of England and across Scotland. Skeldon used 3 years of timesheet data for their approximately 2,600 engineers to develop bespoke methods to analyse and model fatigue in call-out shift workers. SGN changed their shift patterns for engineers in November 2019 in response to her work and incorporated Skeldon’s methods into their Business Intelligence tool allowing line managers and supervisors to more accurately monitor their staff working patterns and check safety-critical issues, such as back-to-back shift working. As a result of these changes, SGN saw a 74% reduction in people working over 16 hours. Initially, for engineers and maintenance operatives only, changes in working patterns were expanded to include support and management staff. Skeldon’s work was crucial in SGN’s negotiations with the HSE regulator, and ultimately their continued licencing (a further 5-year licence was awarded to SGN by the HSE on 6/12/2020) [S9].

Skeldon’s collaboration with SGN has generated industry-wide interest. Consequently, an industry-wide working group including representatives of all UK gas networks and the HSE was established in 2019 to share data, knowledge and understanding across the sector, resulting in a sector-wide understanding of the extent of fatigue from on-call working as a health and safety issue [S9].

4. Raising public awareness

Skeldon regularly engages and involves the public in her research by working with e.g., healthcare professionals and medics who treat sleep and circadian rhythm disorders, politicians and political advisors, and teachers and educators. She regularly presents her findings at major meetings e.g., World Sleep 2017 (~2,600 participants); Society for Research in Biological Rhythms Meeting 2018 (~800 participants); and the UK Clock Club 2017 (~100 participants). A Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology’s briefing note (POSTnote) for MPs and advisors on Sleep and Health [S10] cited conclusions on school start times and adolescent sleep from [R4]. Skeldon proactively raises awareness of the impact of delayed school start times on adolescents and the move to daylight saving. For example, she has been interviewed for or had work featured in The Times (daily circulation ~368,929) and The Daily Mail (daily circulation ~1,169,241), the TES (aimed at teachers and educators), Teen Ink (a by Teens, for Teens blog with 460,000 registered users), and Cosmopolitan magazine [S10]. Furthermore, Skeldon and Dijk used their interactive sleep-wake model at the Natural History Museum’s Universities’ Week (2014), and at a Teachers and Advisers Conference (Surrey, 2014). The mathematical model that sits at the heart of the interactive model is an early version of a published one [R4]. It has been downloaded by 955 users (10/09/2020).