Leela McKinnon

LEELA MCKINNON, then a graduate student at University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, was approved for funding in April 2023 to aid research on “Urban Migration and Sleep Health among Indigenous Wixárika of Jalisco, Mexico,” supervised by Dr. David Samson. Wixárika people are indigenous to remote communities in Mexico’s Sierra Madre Occidental mountains. Increasing migration from rural towns to cities has potential consequences for their sleep. The goal of my project is to document sleep health in Wixárika communities. The grantee collected sleep, survey, and interview data from 61 individuals living in a small, rural Wixárika town in northern Jalisco, Mexico in March 2024. These data contributed to a rural-urban combined dataset of 127 participants. Preliminary data analysis has been completed, focusing on the effect of perceived safety on sleep quality and on factors influencing circadian rhythm health. First, the grantee found that perceived safety is particularly important for women living in Guadalajara, signifying that improved housing quality and safety could be a promising direction for improving migrant health. Second, while the study found that there is no significant difference in circadian rhythm between locations, women and participants working as artisans may have stronger, more stable circadian rhythms, suggesting that in some cases, social factors may be more influential than environmental variables in promoting healthy circadian rhythms. Overall, this focus on sleep health contributes to a more complete picture of the health of Indigenous people and migrant workers in Mexico.