Sleep Impairment is a World Health and Safety issue
The Sleep Society
Sleep is fundamental to life. It influences our physical health, mental wellbeing, learning, productivity, relationships, safety, and quality of life. Yet despite remarkable advances in sleep science and sleep medicine over recent decades, millions of people continue to live with undiagnosed sleep disorders, inadequate sleep, or poor sleep health. Many remain unaware of the profound impact sleep has on almost every aspect of daily life.
The Sleep Society (TSS) was established to help address this challenge by bringing together the people, organisations, and disciplines involved in sleep health. As an international organisation, TSS promotes Connection, Communication, and Collaboration between healthcare professionals, researchers, educators, organisations, industry partners, and the many professional societies dedicated to advancing sleep science and sleep medicine.
No single profession or organisation can meet every aspect of sleep healthcare alone. Better outcomes depend upon sharing knowledge, encouraging interdisciplinary collaboration, and making education and expertise more accessible throughout the world. The Sleep Society exists to help bridge those disciplines and organisations, creating opportunities to learn from one another while improving sleep health for the communities we serve.
While international in its outlook, TSS was founded in British Columbia, Canada. It therefore seemed natural that Canadians should also benefit directly from this growing international network.
What began as SleepSafeBC, a provincial health and safety initiative, soon evolved into SleepSafeCanada as the need for greater public awareness and education about sleep health, sleep science, and the advances being made in sleep medicine became increasingly apparent. It moved from a Provincial Initiative to a National Commitment.
Today, SleepSafeCanada provides a national framework for public education and awareness programmes that promote healthier sleep, improved wellbeing, and safer communities across Canada.
SleepSafeCanada recognises that healthy sleep is far more than simply avoiding tiredness. Healthy sleep depends upon sufficient quality, quantity, and continuity of sleep throughout life. When these are disrupted, the consequences may extend well beyond the individual, affecting families, workplaces, schools, healthcare, transportation, industry, and society as a whole.
Our aim is not simply to raise awareness of sleep disorders. It is to encourage a broader understanding of sleep as one of the fundamental pillars of health, while highlighting the important role that healthy sleep plays in reducing illness, improving performance, enhancing wellbeing, and preventing avoidable injury.
As sleep science continues to evolve, so too must public understanding. Through education, collaboration, practical initiatives, and public engagement, SleepSafeCanada aims to help Canadians better understand why healthy sleep matters and how relatively simple changes can make a significant difference to individual lives and to society as a whole.
A New Way of Thinking about Sleep
For many years, inadequate sleep was regarded largely as an individual problem. Someone who was tired was often expected simply to sleep more, work less, or manage their time better. While personal responsibility remains important, advances in sleep science and sleep medicine have shown that the reality is far more complex.
Sleep is influenced by biological, medical, psychological, occupational, environmental, and social factors. Sleep disorders, circadian rhythm disruption, shift work, chronic sleep restriction, mental health, medications, lifestyle, and many other influences may all contribute to impaired sleep and impaired daytime performance. Recognising these factors has fundamentally changed the way we understand sleep and its importance to both health and society.
Today, sleep impairment is increasingly recognised as both a health issue and a public safety issue.
We frequently hear of major industrial and transportation disasters and later learn that sleep deprivation, circadian disruption, extended wakefulness, untreated sleep disorders, or other forms of sleep impairment contributed to human error and poor decision-making. Well-known examples include the Three Mile Island nuclear accident (USA, 1979), the Chernobyl nuclear disaster (Ukraine, 1986), the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster (USA, 1986), the Exxon Valdez oil spill (Alaska, 1989), the Selby rail crash (United Kingdom, 2001), and the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster (Québec, Canada, 2013), where sleep-related impairment formed part of the broader sequence of contributing factors.
While these events are uncommon, they illustrate a much wider issue. Every day, sleep impairment contributes to motor vehicle collisions, workplace accidents, medical errors, reduced productivity, impaired learning, poorer decision-making, and diminished quality of life. Many of these consequences are preventable through greater awareness, earlier recognition of sleep problems, improved education, and access to appropriate assessment and treatment.
Healthy sleep is therefore not simply a matter of individual wellbeing. It influences public health, community safety, economic productivity, education, transportation, and healthcare. Improving sleep health benefits individuals, families, workplaces, and society as a whole.
Recognising this broader perspective led naturally to the development of SleepSafeCanada’s national public awareness programme. Rather than focusing on a single sleep disorder or one aspect of sleep health, SleepSafeCanada provides a framework for year-round public education that reflects the many ways sleep influences our lives.
A National Framework
Sleep affects every stage of life and every community. No single awareness campaign can adequately address the breadth of issues associated with healthy sleep, nor the many groups who may benefit from improved understanding.
For this reason, SleepSafeCanada has developed and proposed a coordinated programme of national initiatives, each focusing on a specific aspect of sleep health, safety or wellbeing while contributing to a common objective – helping Canadians better understand the importance of their own healthy sleep and empowering them to start making positive changes themselves.
Together, these initiatives form the Canadian Sleep Health Calendar, providing a year-round programme of education, awareness, collaboration and public engagement. Individually, each initiative addresses an important topic. Collectively, they promote a broader understanding that healthy sleep is fundamental to healthier individuals, stronger communities and a safer Canada.
Canada’s Sleep Calendar represents twelve national sleep health initiatives, complemented by the year-round Canada Healthcare Bonds proposal intended to provide Canadians with an opportunity to invest in the future of their own healthcare system while helping to bring much-needed sustainable funding to an already challenged system.
Changing language changes understanding –Changing understanding changes behaviour – Changing behaviour CAN SAVE lives.
A National Sleep Health Program for Canada
Creating meaningful improvements in sleep health requires more than isolated campaigns or occasional public awareness events. Sleep affects people of all ages, professions and communities, and the challenges associated with healthy sleep extend across healthcare, education, transportation, workplaces, public safety and everyday life.
Rather than viewing sleep as a single issue, the Canadian Sleep Health Calendar reflects the many ways healthy sleep influences our lives, from infancy to older age, from schools to workplaces, from homes to highways, and from individual wellbeing to community safety.
Each initiative has its own identity, objectives and educational resources, while contributing to a shared national vision of improving sleep health across Canada. While no initiative can cover every aspect of a subject as broad as human sleep, together they provide a coordinated national framework for improving sleep health, wellbeing and safety.
National Sleep Health and Safety Initiatives for Canada
We invite individuals, healthcare professionals, educators, researchers, organisations, employers, community groups and industry partners across the country to become involved by supporting, participating in and sharing these initiatives within their own communities. Better sleep benefits us all, we all have something to gain, and by working together we can improve the health of our country.
Looking Ahead
Sleep science continues to advance rapidly, and with it our understanding of the importance of healthy sleep. As new evidence emerges and public needs evolve, SleepSafeCanada will continue to develop educational resources, strengthen collaborations and expand initiatives that support healthier sleep and safer communities.
Alongside its public awareness programme, The Sleep Society has developed the Canada Healthcare Bonds proposal for consideration by provincial and federal governments. By drawing upon government treasury and existing financial infrastructure, the proposal presents a potentially popular, practical, sustainable and fiscally responsible approach to supporting healthcare infrastructure, while creating an opportunity for Canadians to invest directly in their nation’s healthcare system. Its objective is to improve the healthcare available to Canadians today while helping to build a strong and sustainable healthcare system for generations to come.
Together, these initiatives reflect a simple but important belief: healthy sleep matters. By bringing together public awareness, education, strong healthcare, collaboration and research, SleepSafeCanada aims to make healthy sleep an integral part of Canadian life – improving health, strengthening communities and building a healthier and safer Canada for generations to come.
Healthy sleep is not a luxury. It is a biological necessity – the foundation of health, of wellbeing and of public safety.
Canada’s Sleep Calendar
The following initiatives are presented in the order in which they are observed throughout the year. Where an established national or international awareness day or month already exists, SleepSafeCanada aligns its initiative with that observance. Where no recognised observance exists, SleepSafeCanada has developed its own evidence-based campaign to address important gaps in public sleep health education, awareness and safety. Together, these initiatives represent practical steps we can take as individuals, as a society, and as a country to improve health, enhance safety, perform at our best, and enjoy the highest possible quality of life.
Together, we hope these 12 initiatives encourage Canadians to make sleep a priority, providing practical, evidence-informed information to help improve the quality, quantity and continuity of their sleep. They also create opportunities for healthcare professionals, researchers, educators, employers, community organizations and industry to work together in promoting healthy sleep across Canada.
We invite industry and organizations to endorse an initiative, participate in it, help extend its reach or provide financial support.
We invite individuals and organizations to participate in, support and share these initiatives within their communities, helping to build a national culture that recognizes sleep as a fundamental pillar of health.
Sleep – there is no substitute!
National Sleep Health and Safety Initiatives for Canada
