Sleep quality and mental health of the elderly in China: evidence from longitudinal data

Against a macro backdrop of accelerating population aging,the mental health and sleep quality of China’s elderly have become subjects of interest because these fac-tors are both closely linked to seniors’quality of life.Based on multi-period track-ing data from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey(CLHLS),this study uses a fixed-effects model to examine the correlation between the sleep quality and mental health of China’s elderly and found that:(1)the elderly in China gener-ally had good sleep quality and mental health;(2)better sleep quality has a posi-tive effect on the mental health of the elderly,while better mental health also posi-tively boosts sleep quality of the elderly;and(3)there may be a causal relationship between the sleep quality and mental health of the elderly.