Sleep hygiene, causes of sleep disruption, and sleep disorder interventions are recent, important topics of health and cultural awareness. The better one’s sleep quality over their lifespan, the better their health status and health outcomes, so who has reliable access to quality sleep is not just a clinical matter, but one for ethics and justice. This theme issue’s focus is broader than poor sleep pathologies and investigates how sleep is, perhaps, best conceived as a communal, natural resource. We all need clean air and water, shelter, nutritionally dense food, and sleep. Of course, we sleep as individuals, but our common human interest in quality sleep of sufficient duration generates collective obligations to respond equitably to chronic health conditions that exacerbate poor sleep patterns; to support conditions for feeling safe, peaceful, and calm enough to rest; and to mitigate noise and light pollution that compromise our and our neighbors’ sleep environments.
