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Development of a symptom load index: enabling temporal and regional pollen season comparisons and pointing out the need for personalized pollen information

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Abstract

This study describes the development of an index, the symptom load index, to compare the severity of pollen seasons for pollen allergy sufferers during different seasons in different geographical regions. This is done by comparing symptom data with pollen data. This study is based on symptom data of the Patients’ Hayfever Diary (PHD) and on pollen data from the European Aeroallergen Network (EAN). The PHD allows objective assessment of the season severity. Season length calculated on the basis of pollen data from the EAN and all records of users in a specific region are included in calculation of the symptom load index. It is thus not influenced by pollen counts during the season. Its application to pollen seasons of the three important pollen types birch, grass and ragweed in Austria and Germany from 2009 to 2013 proved that the impact of a pollen season on allergy sufferers is not correlated with total pollen loads. The possibility to calculate the pollen season in the allergy sufferers’ point of view is a novelty that inaugurates new pathways for the future of pollen information. Furthermore, such an index will be of value for the establishment of personalized pollen information and for calculations of pollen thresholds.

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Abbreviations

APL:

Annual pollen load

EAN:

European Aeroallergen Network

PHD:

Patient’s Hayfever Diary

SLI:

Symptom load index

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Acknowledgments

We thank the pollen information service of Upper Austria (Pollenwarndienst Oberösterreich), the municipal authorities of the provincial capital Linz, the department of the provincial government of Upper Austria and Dr. Dietrich Häfner (Allergopharma) for permission to use the pollen data from certain pollen monitoring stations (ATFREI, ATLINZ, ATVOEC and DEMANN). We also thank Matthias Werchan for his support in dealing with data use policy in relation to the German pollen stations. Christoph Jäger produced Fig. 1 with the kind support of EAN. We are indebted to Carmen Galan for the discussions and fruitful comments that led to the improvement of this manuscript. The suggestions of two anonymous reviewers improved the presentation of the data in the figures herein and the outline of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Katharina Bastl.

Appendix

Appendix

EAN includes pollen data providers within the EAN network as listed below in alphabetical order for each country. Austria: Katharina Bastl, Ursula Brosch, Pramod Harvey, Siegfried Jäger, Maximilian Kmenta, Herta Koll, Sabine Kottik, Margit Langanger, Rudolf Litschauer, Notburga Oeggl-Wahlmüller, Hanna Schantl, Jutta Schmidt, Roland Schmidt, Matt Smith, Helmut Zwander; Germany: Karl-Christian Bergmann and Stiftung Deutscher Polleninformationsdienst (PID), Polleninformationsdienst des Instituts für Meteorologie der Freien Universität Wien, Reinhard Wachter.

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Bastl, K., Kmenta, M., Jäger, S. et al. Development of a symptom load index: enabling temporal and regional pollen season comparisons and pointing out the need for personalized pollen information. Aerobiologia 30, 269–280 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10453-014-9326-6

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