Exposure to allergenic pollen is a risk factor for developing respiratory allergies, and therefore a great cause of concern to public health. They come from trees, grasses, and weeds, and their concentrations vary both spatially and temporally. Pollen monitoring is an important tool in research and health care but little is known about how pollen levels vary within cities and whether such variation affects the development or exacerbation of allergic diseases. Pollen concentrations are frequently obtained from a single station expected to represent the exposure over a large geographic area. Also, due to negligible morphological differences between related species, pollen grains are rarely identified to the species level.
The main objectives of this project are:
(1) to develop and implement a large urban pollen monitoring network capable of accurately representing the variability of airborne pollen concentrations across Montreal; and,
(2) using molecular tools, reconcile tree, grass, and weed pollen types to species level.
This information will allow us to (3) model and forecast the concentration of the different species of pollen and explore linkages to human health outcomes.
This project is a major step forward to improving the way that pollen is monitored and forecasted for public health information.
Have you seen the pollen traps and got questions? Let us know!
