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Pollen information consumption as an indicator of pollen allergy burden

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Summary

Background

The Austrian pollen information service distributes pollen forecasts and offers various options (webpages, a mobile “Pollen” app, interviews for newspapers, radio, TV and information for the press agency) to support and inform pollen allergy sufferers in Austria in the best way to help to avoid their allergen. These services are well received and user numbers have increased, especially in recent years.

Methods

Herein, we unravel for the first time the user pattern over time on a monthly basis and compare it to the major pollen seasons in Austria as well as to the allergic burden.

Results

The symptom load conforms to the web page user numbers and shows the same peaks from the study period of 2012 until 2014. The highest impact in user numbers and allergy burden occurred during the birch pollen season, although similar values were approached during the grass pollen season in 2014. Pollen loads during the respective pollen seasons of birch, grasses and herbs (mugwort and ragweed) mirrored the pattern as well, although to a minor extent, because different plant taxa have a different distribution within Austria and produce different amounts of pollen.

Conclusion

This study provides evidence that pollen information consumption can be seen as an indicator of the burden of pollen allergy sufferers as well as an indicator of the main flowering periods of the main plants inducing pollen allergies in Austria.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Christoph Jäger for supporting the team with the SLI calculations and taking care of the technical background of the databases used (Patient’s Hayfever Diary and the European Aeroallergen Network). Furthermore, we want to thank all Austrian contributors of the European Aeroallergen Network for providing the authors with pollen data: Sabine Kottik (Lower Austria and Vorarlberg); Helmut Zwander (Carinthia); Notburga Oeggl-Wahlmüller (Tyrol); Hanna Schantl (Salzburg); Ursula Brosch and Pramodchandra Harvey (Styria) and Roland and Jutta Schmidt (Upper Austria). Furthermore, we thank two anonymous reviewers who contributed with their careful reviews to the improvement of this publication. Foremost, we want to thank Prof. Siegfried Jäger who sadly passed away in September 2014 for his dedication to build up the Austrian pollen information service and who, therefore, made this study possible.

Conflict of interest

Maximilian Kmenta declares that he has no conflict of interest. Reinhard Zetter declares that he has no conflict of interest. Uwe Berger declares that he has no conflict of interest. Katharina Bastl declares that she has no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ear, Nose and Throat Diseases, Research Unit Aerobiology and Pollen Information, Medical University of Vienna, Währinger Gürtel 18–20, 1090, Vienna, Austria

    Maximilian Kmenta, Uwe Berger & Katharina Bastl

  2. Deparment of Paleontology, Research Unit Paleobotany and Palynology, University of Vienna, Geozentrum, UZAII, Althanstraße 14, 1090, Vienna, Austria

    Maximilian Kmenta & Reinhard Zetter

Authors
  1. Maximilian Kmenta
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  2. Reinhard Zetter
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  4. Katharina Bastl
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Correspondence to Maximilian Kmenta.

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Kmenta, M., Zetter, R., Berger, U. et al. Pollen information consumption as an indicator of pollen allergy burden. Wien Klin Wochenschr 128, 59–67 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00508-015-0855-y

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