Hey podcast listeners, it's Stephen Dubner. This week we are bringing you an episode from our

archives. It's called the economics of sleep part one. And yes, that means that there is a part two,

which you will hear next week. We thought it was time to replay these episodes because they are

two of our most popular episodes ever. Now, why is that? I think it may be because as much as

people tend to focus on nutrition and exercise as the vital inputs in maintaining the human machine

sleep often gets overlooked. So, let's stop overlooking it, yeah? Hope you enjoy it and I hope you

learn as much about sleep as we did in making this episode.

We begin in Brownsville, Brooklyn at the Brownsville Multiservice Family Health Center.

Good afternoon.

Graciella Flatz, she goes by Grace, is a nurse and the clinics director of nursing. She was born in

Panama, moved to New York about 20 years ago. Something that I always said to everybody, I born to be

a nurse. I love nursing and I love my patient. No matter how much you love your job, Brownsville is

not necessarily the first neighborhood where most people would choose to work. It's got a lot of

crime, a lot of unemployment and not much money. You always surprise to see the income that some

people make here. Approximately between 60-65% of our patients, they are under the poverty level.

The median household income in Brownsville is barely $27,000. About three-quarters of the residents

are African-American. Grace Flatz is also of African descent. She says that roughly 90% of the

patients in her health clinic are there for chronic diseases. The core of our services are

hyper-transiv diabetes and obesity. Hyper-tension, diabetes and obesity heart disease too.

On the face of it, there is nothing noteworthy about this predominance of chronic diseases.

According to the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 86% of US health care

spending goes to treat chronic diseases. But what is noteworthy is that these conditions are

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