Abstract

OTEROS, José; GARCIA-MOZC, Herminia; VIUF 0RBY, Pia  and  GALAN, Carmen. Google trends, useful tool in airborne palien detection. An. Fac. med. [online]. 2015, vol.76, n.3, pp.265-268. ISSN 1025-5583.

Pollinosis is one of the most extended allergies in the world, determining directly the quality of life of the population. Airborne pollen forecasting has beco me a key objective for allergists and aerobiologists trying to prevent the symptoms of hay fever. 800gle trends is a tool developed by Cooqle, which provides information about the dynamics of user searches through internet. The main aim of this work is to conduct a preliminary assessment of the usefulness of this tool to detect the presence of large concentrations of pollen in the atmosphere and to explore the impact of pollinosis among the population. To achieve these objectives, the analysis is based on data for olive pollen concentrations in the atmosphere of Cordoba (Spain) and search counts in 800gle of the words "Allergy", "Pollen" and "Olive". We observed a high correlation and a high geographic relationship between the number of searches for words related to pollen allergy, and the actual concentrations of atmospheric pollen. This tool possesses a great potential in the fight against allergy because it can provide instant and on-line information about symptoms in population, unlike traditional methods that have a mismatch of information. Thus, the present study provides evidence about the potential of 800gle trends to detect the presence of aeroallergens and to study the impact of pollinosis.

Keywords : Aerobiology; Pollen; Allergy; Pollinosis; 800gle trends.

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