Overview
- Researchers at the Copenhagen Health Complexity Center created a causal-loop diagram that links 29 biological, psychological, behavioral and social factors to explain persistent poor sleep and depressive symptoms in people aged 18–40.
- The expert-driven map identifies 175 directed causal connections and many thousands of potential self-reinforcing loops that could keep sleep problems and depressive symptoms in place.
- Fourteen specialists from sleep science, psychology, sociology, epidemiology and biology proposed factors and rated links to build the model, which is available online as an interactive decision-support tool.
- The tool has already been used in workshops with Faaborg-Midtfyn Municipality to inform local prevention ideas and to help officials target interventions at interlinked drivers such as stress, screen use and nicotine.
- Authors caution the model is not empirically validated, may reflect expert bias or gaps (for example political and environmental drivers are underrepresented), and they call for targeted studies and iterative updates before the loops are treated as proven causal pathways.