Sleep-Medicine Coalition Pushes for Permanent Standard Time

By and large, Americans dislike changing their clocks twice a year for Daylight Saving Time—one survey has found that 62 percent U.S. residents would like to see it done away with  (opens in a new tab). With a new administration in the White House, a coalition of sleep-medicine associations believes it may have an opportunity for (one final clock) change.

Since 2020, the Coalition for Permanent Standard Time  (opens in a new tab) has pushed on the state and federal levels for the abolition of Daylight Saving Time. According to Dr. Karin Johnson, co-chair of the coalition and member of the advocacy committee for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, the initiative was a product of clinical research demonstrating that Americans were healthier on standard time. What it calls “circadian misalignment” due to Daylight Saving Time makes it harder for people to sleep and is correlated with cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and neurodegenerative disease.

Organizing multiple groups—including AASM, the Sleep Research Society, the American College of Chest Physicians, and others—into the coalition helped strengthen its advocacy mission.

“One of the factors that made me push for the formation of the Coalition was that when I was doing Hill visits, legislators would say how they would have people coming from different associations but with similar interests, for example sleep, and they would all have slightly different asks which would make it harder for the legislators to know what were the most important and meaningful,” she said. “By forming the Coalition, we could make sure we were standardizing our messaging and our advocacy focus across the main stakeholders and present a united message.”

The coalition may have a supporter in President Donald Trump, who in late December signaled an interest in permanently ending Daylight Saving Time  (opens in a new tab). Whether he’ll follow through on that interest is uncertain. Also uncertain is whether any change would involve moving to permanent standard time (which the Coalition supports) or permanent daylight time (which it doesn’t).

“He’s surrounded himself with some of the main supporters of the Sunshine Protection Act (which would make Daylight Saving Time permanent),” she said. “Even though he’s said he wants to make standard time permanent, he didn’t make it clear that there’s a difference between one time and the other. But it has invigorated the conversation.”

To build on that conversation, the coalition plans to continue advocacy efforts at statehouses. “In the last year there was good movement, especially on the West Coast, in California, Oregon and Washington,” she said. “When we get some positive movement at the state level, we think that can help really change the federal conversation.”

One selling point for the coalition, Johnson said, is that it’s a public-health initiative that avoids debates about medicine and even spending. 

“When we went to Hill last year, we left offices and people were like, ‘You’re not going to ask for money?’” she said. “No, we just want to talk about what we think is an important public health issue and we want to make sure it’s clear what the benefits are.”

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