Immunity to Covid-19: March 2023 update
How do our bodies defend against Covid-19? Read how immune responses differ across people, variants, reinfection, vaccination, and current immunisation strategies.

A POSTbrief that describes the research examining the long-term health outcomes associated with disruptions to sleep and the circadian rhythm. Long-term sleep problems are associated with a range of poor health outcomes including increased risk for mental health conditions, obesity and type 2 diabetes, amongst others.
Sleep and Long-Term Health (392 KB , PDF)
Sleep interacts with many biological processes in the body, affecting physical and mental health. Long-term sleep problems, such as short sleep duration and poor sleep quality, have been associated with a range of poor health outcomes, including impaired cognitive functioning and increased risk for mental health conditions, neurodegenerative diseases, obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, impaired immune functioning and chronic pain conditions.
For many long-term health outcomes, evidence for whether sleep causally contributes to health outcomes is not clear or firmly established. Some of this research is limited by the lack of high-quality and large-scale data on sleep duration, quality and timing. There is also a need for large, well-controlled intervention studies which test whether improving sleep leads to better long-term health outcomes. The mechanisms through which sleep affects health are also not well understood, but may include sleep’s role in neural processing, inflammation, metabolism, gene regulation, clearance of toxins and hormonal regulation.
Future research is focused on developing and testing ways to prevent, diagnose and treat sleep problems. Other research is investigating sleep health in specific parts of the population (such as different age or minority ethnic groups) and whether treating sleep problems can improve long-term health outcomes.
The POSTbrief comprises a review of the latest research evidence on sleep and its link to a range of health conditions.
POSTbriefs are responsive policy briefings from the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology. This POSTbrief is based on a literature review, interviews with external stakeholders and peer review. POST would like to thank interviewees and peer reviewers for kindly giving up their time during the preparation of this briefing, including:
*denotes people who acted as external reviewers of the briefing.
Sleep and Long-Term Health (392 KB , PDF)
How do our bodies defend against Covid-19? Read how immune responses differ across people, variants, reinfection, vaccination, and current immunisation strategies.
This POSTnote will analyse available data on recent trends in distress linked to gender identity and lifespan trajectories in children and adults.
This POSTnote will explain plans to improve patient choice in the context of reforming the Mental Health Act.