Dr. Terry Young is a distinguished epidemiologist and leading authority in sleep medicine research at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. She holds the prestigious Stein Professorship in the Department of Medicine and serves as a professor in Population Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Young has established herself as a pioneering researcher in sleep disorders epidemiology through decades of rigorous scientific investigation and leadership. Her academic journey has positioned her at the forefront of understanding the population-level impact of sleep-related conditions, transforming sleep medicine from a niche specialty into a critical public health priority.
Dr. Young's groundbreaking 1993 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine fundamentally reshaped the medical understanding of sleep-disordered breathing, revealing its true prevalence affected 9% of women and 24% of men in the middle-aged workforce. This seminal work, based on the Wisconsin Sleep Cohort Study, established sleep apnea as a major public health concern rather than a rare condition, catalyzing a paradigm shift in clinical recognition and diagnosis worldwide. Her longitudinal research on the natural history of sleep apnea has provided critical insights into the condition's progression, risk factors, and relationship to cardiovascular disease. Dr. Young's epidemiological methods and criteria have been widely adopted as the gold standard in sleep medicine research and clinical practice.
As an associate editor for the journal SLEEP, Dr. Young has significantly influenced the scientific discourse in sleep medicine for decades while mentoring numerous researchers who have become leaders in the field. Her ongoing work continues to explore the long-term health consequences of sleep disorders and their connections to metabolic conditions, cognitive decline, and cardiovascular outcomes. Dr. Young remains actively engaged in refining population screening approaches and developing evidence-based public health interventions to address the growing epidemic of sleep-disordered breathing. Her current research focuses on advancing precision medicine approaches to identify at-risk populations and develop targeted prevention strategies for sleep-related health complications.
