ReviewThe Science of the total environment2017
Health consequences of electric lighting practices in the modern world: A report on the National Toxicology Program's workshop on shift work at night, artificial light at night, and circadian disruption.
Review in The Science of the total environment, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 166 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
166 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 395 citations in OpenAlex.
- Dietary Supplement Interventions and Sleep Quality Improvement: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Nutrients · 2025Pooled it
- A systematic review and meta-analysis on light therapy for sleep disorders in shift workers.Scientific reports · 2025Pooled it
- Sex Differences in Insomnia and Circadian Rhythm Disorders: A Systematic Review.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2024Pooled it
- Influence of light at night on allergic diseases: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC medicine · 2024Pooled it
- An update on the role and potential mechanisms of clock genes regulating spermatogenesis: A systematic review of human and animal experimental studies.Reviews in endocrine & metabolic disorders · 2023Pooled it
- Circadian rhythm disrupting behaviours and cancer outcomes in breast cancer survivors: a systematic review.Breast cancer research and treatment · 2023Pooled it
- Reducing Test Anxiety: A Randomized Controlled Pilot Study of Evening Bright Light Exposure in University Students.Depression and anxiety · 2025Trial
- Dependence of Cerebral Oxygenation and Task Performance on Coloured Light Exposure and Chronotype: Blue and Red Do Not Have the Same Effects on the Prefrontal Cortex.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2024Trial
- Time-restricted eating with or without low-carbohydrate diet reduces visceral fat and improves metabolic syndrome: A randomized trial.Cell reports. Medicine · 2022Trial
- Feasibility of time-restricted eating and impacts on cardiometabolic health in 24-h shift workers: The Healthy Heroes randomized control trial.Cell metabolism · 2022Trial
- The effects of dynamic daylight-like light on the rhythm, cognition, and mood of irregular shift workers in closed environment.Scientific reports · 2021Trial
- The Effect of a Photochromic Contact Lens on Visual Function Indoors: A Randomized, Controlled Trial.Optometry and vision science : official publication of the American Academy of Optometry · 2020Trial
- Ten-Hour Time-Restricted Eating Reduces Weight, Blood Pressure, and Atherogenic Lipids in Patients with Metabolic Syndrome.Cell metabolism · 2020Trial
- Role of Life's Essential 8 in the association of night shift work with cardiovascular disease and mortality: a prospective cohort study of UK Biobank participants.Journal of global health · 2026Article
- Lifetime exposure to shift work and risk of multiple sclerosis: retrospective and prospective cohort studies in UK Biobank.Occupational and environmental medicine · 2026Article
- Short- and Long-Term Chrono-Immune Consequences of Dim Light at Night Exposure in Male Mice at Different Life Stages.Clocks & sleep · 2026Article
- Light-at-night exposure drives myopia via melanopsin signalling.Science China. Life sciences · 2026Article
- The ecological importance of natural dark nights for circadian organization, metabolism and reproduction in birds.BMC ecology and evolution · 2026Review
- Family History and Solar Insolation in Bipolar I Disorder.Acta psychiatrica Scandinavica · 2026Article
- Physiologically-relevant light exposure and light behaviour in Switzerland and Malaysia.Journal of exposure science & environmental epidemiology · 2026Observational
106 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
22 authors at 15 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
Abstract
The invention of electric light has facilitated a society in which people work, sleep, eat, and play at all hours of the 24-hour day. Although electric light clearly has benefited humankind, exposures to electric light, especially light at night (LAN), may disrupt sleep and biological processes controlled by endogenous circadian clocks, potentially resulting in adverse health outcomes. Many of the studies evaluating adverse health effects have been conducted among night- and rotating-shift workers, because this scenario gives rise to significant exposure to LAN. Because of the complexity of this topic, the National Toxicology Program convened an expert panel at a public workshop entitled "Shift Work at Night, Artificial Light at Night, and Circadian Disruption" to obtain input on conducting literature-based health hazard assessments and to identify data gaps and research needs. The Panel suggested describing light both as a direct effector of endogenous circadian clocks and rhythms and as an enabler of additional activities or behaviors that may lead to circadian disruption, such as night-shift work and atypical and inconsistent sleep-wake patterns that can lead to social jet lag. Future studies should more comprehensively characterize and measure the relevant light-related exposures and link these exposures to both time-independent biomarkers of circadian disruption and biomarkers of adverse health outcomes. This information should lead to improvements in human epidemiological and animal or in vitro models, more rigorous health hazard assessments, and intervention strategies to minimize the occurrence of adverse health outcomes due to these exposures.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.