Every year, on the second Sunday of March, the vast majority of Americans set their clocks forward by one hour for daylight saving time. While DST provides an extra hour of evening light and enjoys public support, new research suggests its negative health impacts outweigh the benefits.
Why Is This the Case?
The shift to DST has faced scrutiny due to its potential effects on health, as it disrupts the body’s circadian rhythm—the internal clock that regulates patterns of sleepiness and wakefulness throughout the day.However, only recently have psychologists and medical professionals acknowledged DST’s impact on decision-making processes. “ The current results,” he noted, “add to this literature by showing that an area that one would hope would be immune—medical errors and malpractice litigation—is susceptible, too.”
Mr. Scullin and his colleagues examined 288,432 malpractice claims from the National Practitioner Data Bank, the most extensive database of its kind in the United States, spanning January 1990 to September 2018. The study focused on the immediate effects of the DST shift by comparing claims from the week before and after the springtime adjustment.
The Findings Were Rather Sobering
The correlation between the switch to DST and medical errors was undeniably strong.While laboratory experiments don’t always translate to the real world, in this case, the researchers observed the same principle in their new paper: very mild sleep restriction from the spring DST shift increases the willingness to punish physicians for medical errors, Mr. Scullin said.
The authors were impressed by the findings due to the intricate nature of medical errors and litigation in the real world, he added. These occurrences, along with the determinations of claim payments, stem from dozens of factors.
“Even still, there was a ’signal‘ (DST effects) amongst all the potential sources of ’noise,' which tells us that mild sleep restriction and mild circadian misalignment are consequential on both the individual and the population level,” Mr. Scullin, who has been investigating how sleep deprivation impacts memory, cognition, and overall health, added.
The effects of DST must be viewed through a broader lens. Springing forward doesn’t just negatively impact the medical community. It has a negative effect on millions of Americans of various ages and backgrounds.
DST Comes With Financial Costs Too
In 2016, a study published in the American Economic Journal revealed that the loss of sleep caused by the time change during the “spring forward” to daylight saving time results in an annual economic cost of $275 million. This is due to the fact that DST raises the likelihood of fatal car accidents, which contribute significantly to this economic burden.As mentioned, not all states in the United States follow DST. Hawaii and Arizona have opted out of observing daylight saving time. Isn’t it time for other states to follow their lead and stop deviating from standard time?
Although the decision would result in less daylight during the spring and summer months, it would likely help save many lives and tens of millions of dollars annually by avoiding the disruptions caused by the time change.
