title: Predicting Onset and Duration of Airborne Allergenic Pollen Season in the United States.
abstract: Allergenic pollen is one of the main triggers of Allergic Airway Disease (AAD) affecting 5% to 30% of the population in industrialized countries. A modeling framework has been developed using correlation and collinearity analyses, simulated annealing, and stepwise regression based on nationwide observations of airborne pollen counts and climatic factors to predict the onsets and durations of allergenic pollen seasons of representative trees, weeds and grass in the contiguous United States. Main factors considered are monthly, seasonal and annual mean temperatures and accumulative precipitations, latitude, elevation, Growing Degree Day (GDD), Frost Free Day (FFD), Start Date (SD) and Season Length (SL) in the previous year. The estimated mean SD and SL for birch (Betula), oak (Quercus), ragweed (Ambrosia), mugwort (Artemisia) and grass (Poaceae) pollen season in 1994-2010 are mostly within 0 to 6 days of the corresponding observations for the majority of the National Allergy Bureau (NAB) monitoring stations across the contiguous US. The simulated spatially resolved maps for onset and duration of allergenic pollen season in the contiguous US are consistent with the long term observations.
authors.affiliation: Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute (EOHSI), Rutgers University, 170 Frelinghuysen Rd., Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA ; Department of Environmental and Occupational Medicine, Rutgers University - Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA ; Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Rutgers University, 98 Brett Rd., Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA.
authors.forename: Yong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute (EOHSI), Rutgers University, 170 Frelinghuysen Rd., Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA ; Department of Environmental Sciences, Rutgers University, 14 College Farm Rd., New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA ; Department of Medicine, Section of Allergy and Immunology, Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA.
authors.forename: Leonard
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bielory
authors.affiliation: Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute (EOHSI), Rutgers University, 170 Frelinghuysen Rd., Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA ; Department of Environmental and Occupational Medicine, Rutgers University - Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA ; Department of Environmental Sciences, Rutgers University, 14 College Farm Rd., New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA.
authors.forename: Ting
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Cai
authors.affiliation: Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute (EOHSI), Rutgers University, 170 Frelinghuysen Rd., Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA ; Department of Environmental and Occupational Medicine, Rutgers University - Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA.
authors.forename: Zhongyuan
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Mi
authors.affiliation: Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute (EOHSI), Rutgers University, 170 Frelinghuysen Rd., Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA ; Department of Environmental and Occupational Medicine, Rutgers University - Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA ; Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Rutgers University, 98 Brett Rd., Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA ; Department of Environmental Sciences, Rutgers University, 14 College Farm Rd., New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA.
authors.forename: Panos
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Georgopoulos
keywords: Allergy; Model; Pollen season; Season length; Start date