Baylor College of Medicine Sleep Center outreach project for teen health gets recognition from Houston Mayor
Lata Casturi, a senior sleep technologist at the Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) Sleep Center, had experienced the challenges of unhealthy habits, as a mother of two typical teenagers. Over the last year, Mrs. Casturi has guided an extraordinary community service project that has brought a much-needed awareness to the issue of instilling healthy sleep habits amongst teenagers.
It all started rather innocuously when she was approached by a 7th grader, Anita Rao, from the Pearland ISD who wanted to do a Science Fair project related to sleep. With input from Dr. Shyam Subramanian, the Medical Director of the BCM Sleep Center, they formulated a comprehensive questionnaire that queried the bedtime and sleep habits of early teenagers, as well as their use of electronic media close to bedtime. Anita then single-handedly coordinated the administration of this questionnaire to over a hundred middle school students. The results – striking, but not surprising to Lata - showed a high prevalence of poor sleep hygiene primarily due to a technology invasion of the bedroom environment in these early teens, and a negative correlation with the day-time alertness of these students. Anita won the first prize at the district science fair in recognition of her efforts.
Taking these results as a call to action, Lata suggested that Anita recruit more kids, and start a community education campaign to promote healthy sleep habits among teens. The results have been extraordinarily effective and rewarding. Under Lata's active and able mentorship, the team – now consisting of six girls (Anita Rao, Sharon Yang, Caroline Martin, Yimeng Wang, Shelby Stanfield and Kayla Scott) and two boys (Shiv Patel and Drew Hall) have constituted themselves as Project S.I.E.S.T.A. (Students Involved in the Education about Sleep hygiene for Teen Adolescents). In the span of four months, Project SIESTA has now been officially embraced and endorsed by the School Board. At their request, the mayor of Houston, Bill White, has declared October 30 as Healthy Sleep Day. Using that momentum, they are now organizing to promote their message in many schools in the Houston area. Besides the project has attracted national attention and they have been invited to present their findings to the Sleep Institute of the ACCP at their international convention in San Diego. The group has set up a informational website as well as a blog that chronicles their varied activities.
The biggest impact that Project SIESTA has of course been on the teens' lives they have touched, and in helping instill healthier sleep habits in them, and thereby enhancing both their learning ability and health. Dr. Subramanian, who has lent his support and critical oversight to the team throughout the project has expressed great pride in the team's accomplishments. He says “Community outreach is an integral part of our center's philosophy, and what these young kids have done is shown how a combination of imagination and inspiration coupled with hardwork can effect tremendous transformation and remarkable change” Dr Guntupalli, Chief of Pulmonary Critical Care and Sleep section at Baylor College of Medicine says “It is very gratifying to note that the BCM Sleep Center has been a resource for the Houston community youngsters and schools in promoting healthy sleep habits early in life.”