ArticlePLoS computational biology2020
Measurable health effects associated with the daylight saving time shift.
Article in PLoS computational biology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 1 of them a synthesis 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
19 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- A systematic review of epidemiological studies into daylight-saving time & health identifying beneficial & adverse effects.European journal of epidemiology · 2026Pooled it
- When the Clock Shifts: A Comprehensive Review of Daylight-Saving Time (DST), Circadian Disruption, and Neuropsychological Risk in Chronic Mental Illness.Brain sciences · 2026Review
- Impact of Daylight Saving Time on Physical Activity Patterns.Nature health · 2026Article
- Should We Keep Changing the Clock? Characterizing Causal Effects of Daylight Saving Time on Behavior and Physiology.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Article
- Are there lingering effects of Daylight-Saving Time on sleep and health estimates of an Australian population?Sleep advances : a journal of the Sleep Research Society · 2026Article
- Health-Framed Messaging and Its Impact on Attitudes Toward Daylight Saving Time.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- The effects of daylight saving time clock changes on accelerometer-measured sleep duration in the UK Biobank.Journal of sleep research · 2025Article
- The British Sleep Society position statement on Daylight Saving Time in the UK.Journal of sleep research · 2025Review
- Seasonal variations in psychiatry outpatient service utilization in a tertiary health care center in subtropical arid regions of northwestern India.Indian journal of psychiatry · 2024Article
- Daylight Saving Time Practice and the Rate of Adverse Cardiovascular Events in the United States: A Probabilistic Assessment in a Large Nationwide Study.Mayo Clinic proceedings. Innovations, quality & outcomes · 2024Article
- Permanent standard time is the optimal choice for health and safety: an American Academy of Sleep Medicine position statement.Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine · 2024Article
- All cause and cause specific mortality associated with transition to daylight saving time in US: nationwide, time series, observational study.BMJ medicine · 2024Article
- Longitude-based time zone partitions and rates of suicide.Journal of affective disorders · 2023Article
- Circadian rhythms and inflammatory diseases of the liver and gut.Liver research (Beijing, China) · 2023Review
- Daylight saving time affects European mortality patterns.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Acute Myocardial Infarction and Daylight Saving Time Transitions: Is There a Risk?Clocks & sleep · 2021Article
- Circadian Mechanisms in Medicine.The New England journal of medicine · 2021Review
- Daylight Saving Time and Spontaneous Deliveries: A Case-Control Study in Italy.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The transition to daylight saving time (DST) is beneficial for energy conservation but at the same time it has been reported to increase the risk of cerebrovascular and cardiovascular problems. Here, we evaluate the effect of the DST shift on a whole spectrum of diseases-an analysis we hope will be helpful in weighing the risks and benefits of DST shifts. Our study relied on a population-based, cross-sectional analysis of the IBM Watson Health MarketScan insurance claim dataset, which incorporates over 150 million unique patients in the US, and the Swedish national inpatient register, which incorporates more than nine million unique Swedes. For hundreds of sex- and age-specific diseases, we assessed effects of the DST shifts forward and backward by one hour in spring and autumn by comparing the observed and expected diagnosis rates after DST shift exposure. We found four prominent, elevated risk clusters, including cardiovascular diseases (such as heart attacks), injuries, mental and behavioral disorders, and immune-related diseases such as noninfective enteritis and colitis to be significantly associated with DST shifts in the United States and Sweden. While the majority of disease risk elevations are modest (a few percent), a considerable number of diseases exhibit an approximately ten percent relative risk increase. We estimate that each spring DST shift is associated with negative health effects-with 150,000 incidences in the US, and 880,000 globally. We also identify for the first time a collection of diseases with relative risks that appear to decrease immediately after the spring DST shift, enriched with infections and immune system-related maladies. These diseases' decreasing relative risks might be driven by the documented boosting effect of a short-term stress (such as that experienced around the spring DST shift) on the immune system.
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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.