ABSTRACT
By 1990, awareness of the impact of asthma and hay fever on the medical services and loss of working hours had reached a point where the need and advantage of setting up of bodies to coordinate the growing number of pollen monitoring sites became an urgent necessity. Perhaps the most important application of the monitoring programme is the provision of allergenic pollen and spore data to the media: press, radio and television networks. The application of aerobiology, especially with regard to allergenic pollen and spores, to forecasting the onset of the pollen seasons, has obvious implications for community and individual health and for the national and local economy. The utilization of parameter data from meteorological, aerobiological, phenological and phytogeographical studies, is one good example of the value of interdisciplinary work related to allergology. The influence of rainfall on pollen concentration in the atmosphere has been investigated by many aerobiologists.
