Hay fever mapping? There’s an app for that

Image of a mast cell taken by researchers at the University of Edinburgh. Pollen causes this ball of histamine granules to explode, irritating the upper respiratory passages and causing hay fever symptoms. Photograph: Wellcome Trust/PA

Seasonal allergies, such as hay fever and allergic asthma, are on the rise in the UK as your article (First hay fever map of Britain offers some relief to sufferers, theguardian.com, 20 May) rightly points out, with up to one in four people now experiencing symptoms each year. However, these are complex conditions, and just mapping pollen levels does not tell the full story in allowing accurate prediction of allergy symptoms. Many people will react to multiple things, not just pollens, and increasingly we are aware that environmental conditions, in particular pollution and weather, play an important role in when and how people experience seasonal allergy, although we have yet to fully understand the intricacies of these interactions.

A woman wearing a “hay fever hat” created by the Japanese inventor Kenji Kawakami. Photograph: Katsumi Kasahara/AP

Our citizen science app #BritainBreathing is the first UK-wide research project to work with the public, gathering their symptoms of allergy day by day, to create a true map of how people are experiencing seasonal allergy around the UK. With the help of our “citizen sensors”, we hope to build our understanding of how pollen, weather and pollution interact to trigger allergy symptoms. We encourage your readers to download our app and get involved at britainbreathing.org
Dr Sheena Cruickshank (@sheencr)
Senior lecturer in immunology, University of Manchester; British Society for Immunology representative

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