Introduction

Introduction to Our Project

The rise of pollen allergies is an issue that continues to negatively impact people’s daily lives across the globe. This issue is particularly heightened in Europe, where many invasive species thrive and produce allergenic pollen. Different pollen types from trees, grass, and weeds have been documented to spread rapidly and increase in allergenicity over time. The goals of our project are to develop a data analysis tool that determines the relationships between pollen counts, allergies, pollution, and climate in Bucharest, develop a method for collecting data on Romanian lifestyle practices, and bring awareness to the issue of increased pollen allergy symptoms, including how it can be addressed in an urban environment.

The rise in pollen count and seasonal allergies is affected by city upkeep, climate change, and people’s lifestyle practices. Statistics show that urban areas are more affected by this than rural ones. In fact, the number of patients reported from urban areas triples, sometimes quadruples those from rural areas (Cvetkovski et al., 2018). Cities provide an advantageous environment for weeds, which thrive uncontested in loosely packed soil and warmer temperatures. Not only that, with urbanization, people are eliminating or abandoning green spaces, reducing the native biodiversity and leaving the city even more susceptible to invasive species (Deutschewitz et al., 2003).

Climate change and the abundance of air pollution from vehicle emissions in the atmosphere negatively affects the overall health and increases ambient pollen levels. Air pollutants, including bio-pollutants like pollen, create inflammation in the lungs, making people more susceptible to respiratory disease and allergies. Additionally, longer summer and fall seasons are causing pollen, especially from ragweed plants, to spread more quickly, and diseases like allergic rhinitis are becoming more serious (D’Amato et al., 2010).

Additionally, lifestyle is a complex topic that covers activities that directly and indirectly affect the chances of allergy development. Living in a congested city with exposure to high pollen concentration increases the chances of having an allergy. By choosing cars as their primary mode of transportation, people are adding to ambient pollutants that are harmful to the respiratory system. Other factors such as poor diet, hygiene, and limited exercise are related to a person’s overall health, adding to the negative effects of pollen allergies. For allergy patients, self-medication is common, due to underestimating the severity of allergies, and inaccessibility to proper healthcare. Relying on over-the-counter medicines or home remedies can lead to future manifestation of symptoms, especially for those with more severe symptoms (Cvetkovski et al, 2018).

Pollen producers have been previously studied in many scenarios by researchers and organizations around the world. One of the most notable organizations is The European Commission Cooperation in Science and Technology, also known as COST. COST analyzed pollen information from 242 pollen traps across Europe and discovered trends in amounts of pollen in these locations daily, annually, and the average amount measured during each season (Sikoparija et al., 2016). However, most of Romania was not included in this data, thus, it remains unclear how pollen information there compares to COST’s findings.

Locally, ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia), is an invasive species, first introduced to Romania in the Orsova region in 1908 through war supplies arriving from abroad. Since then, it has quickly spread to the rest of the country (Florincescu-Gheorghe et al., 2019). In 2018, the Romanian Parliament passed a law to control the spread of ragweed, but there is still a gap in knowledge regarding the exact pollen levels of this type and many others in Bucharest and how their change affects seasonal allergies.

In order to narrow this gap, our team created a data analysis tool, named the “Correlation Machine” to help our collaborators, Dr. Polliana Leru and her team at Carol Davila University of Medicine & Pharmacy and Colentina Clinical Hospital organize and analyze data regarding pollen counts, pollution levels, and climate. The Correlation Machine is able to make correlations between the factors involved using Spearman’s correlation coefficients and regression models. It can receive new data, calculate correlations between variables, create graphs for prospective trends, and is well documented with guided manuals to help Dr. Leru and other contributors to use and edit it.

For our analysis, we used previously collected pollen count, chemical pollution, and climate data provided by Dr. Leru and her team, the National Meteorological Agency (Global Surface, 2019) and the National Institute for Research and Development in Optoelectronics. Information on lifestyle and respiratory health, however, were unavailable. We developed and distributed a survey that can complete this missing lifestyle data. The goal of the survey is to demonstrate which Romanian activities impact allergy symptoms and pollen levels. Our survey includes questions to gather information about people’s background, their allergies, transportation usages, household conditions and diet. The full survey can be found in Appendix A. We refined the survey in response to comments from our collaborators and advisors, as well as the responses of the participants. We also supplemented the missing health data by exploring the public interest in allergy-related search terms over time through Google Trends data available from Romania.

Lastly, we aimed to better educate the public on allergy symptoms, available treatments, and how individual choices can impact their symptoms and the environment. We created a Facebook page to increase the online presence of pollen allergy studies and post related information. We also designed an educational pamphlet to be distributed at the hospital or online. With these strategies, we hope to help Dr. Leru and her organizations gather support for further research on this topic.

During our project the global outbreak of COVID-19 occurred. Travel restrictions and health advisories prevented our group from traveling to Bucharest to carry out the project. However, because of the importance of global climate change and the related medical issues it is causing, including seasonal allergies, we committed ourselves to carry out the project remotely, through various electronic communications. Despite this setback, our collaborator, Dr. Leru was equally committed and eager to continue the project, on top of her responsibility as a doctor at a hospital that treated COVID-19 patients. Because of the restrictions created by this global pandemic, we made a few adjustments to the project to continue to work with our collaborator in Bucharest and our advisors remotely, and these measures will be further explained in the Methodology Chapter.