Remote Longitudinal Tracking of Sleep, Depression, and Cognition Across Early Adolescence: Protocol for a Longitudinal Observational Study

Background

Depression in adolescents is a growing public health concern, with 3.5 million youth in the United States experiencing a depressive episode each year. When symptoms emerge in early adolescence, they can have lasting psychological, physical, and cognitive consequences, highlighting the urgent need for proactive intervention. Insufficient sleep-characterized by short duration, irregular timing, and poor quality-is bidirectionally linked to depression and associated with impaired cognitive performance.