A correlation study between airborne pollen and cases of pollinosis in humans

摘要

This study aims to establish the mathematical relationship between allergenic pollen in the air and clinical cases of pollinosis (hay fever) in humans, and to evaluate the immediate effect of wind and rain on such cases. The pollen was collected in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain (42° 30' N and 3°E), through a filtration method, in the spring of 1998. Skin tests revealed that the antigenic taxa are Olea europaea, Plantago sp., Parietaria officinalis and Gramineae. A linear correlation - with the number of days with presence of pollen as the abscissa and the number of days with coincidence of pollinosis as the ordinate - was performed. The linear correlation coefficient was 0.9285, at the limit of a direct correlation by two degrees of freedom. Furthermore, a negative relationship was observed between the number of days with rain and number of days with pollinosis, and a positive relationship between the number of days with fixed wind speed and number of days with pollinosis.