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Sleep and public health

Pierre Philip, professor and head of university sleep medicine in Bordeaux, has studied sleepiness at the wheel for decades - out of the laboratory, on real roads.

World Sleep Forum · Monte Verità · Ascona, Switzerland · November 2025

Short nights and early alarms on weekdays, shifted hours at the weekend: social jet lag adds sleep debt to circadian disruption. Philip calls it a major sleep problem, with consequences ranging from insomnia to daytime sleepiness.

You have twice as many accidents if you have social jet lag.

The interviewee's estimate. We have not yet checked it against a published source.

Sleep is a determinant of health on a par with nutrition or physical activity. Attention to sleep patterns is growing: the direction is right, but education must continue.

France has just launched an interministerial sleep plan: traffic regulation, sleep health, education, work organisation. A public policy that treats sleep as an infrastructure of safety.

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