Grantee Research Project Results

2010 Progress Report: Projecting Pollen Allergens and Their Health Implications in a Changing World

EPA Grant Number: R834358
Title: Projecting Pollen Allergens and Their Health Implications in a Changing World
Investigators: Flagan, Richard , Gilliland, Frank D. , VanReken, Timothy M. , Guenther, Alex , Lamb, Brian , Chung, Sandra
Institution: California Institute of Technology , University of California - Los Angeles , Washington State University , National Center for Atmospheric Research
Current Institution: California Institute of Technology , National Center for Atmospheric Research , University of California - Los Angeles , Washington State University
EPA Project Officer: Chung, Serena
Project Period: October 1, 2009 through September 30, 2012 (Extended to September 30, 2013)
Project Period Covered by this Report: October 1, 2009 through September 30,2010
Project Amount: $900,000
RFA: Climate Change and Allergic Airway Disease (2008) RFA Text |  Recipients Lists
Research Category: Climate Change , Human Health

Objective:

Our overall goal is to develop models to answer the questions posed above through a combination of focused experimental studies, modeling, and statistical analysis that will ultimately lead to the integration of pollen allergen and population health outcome models into an existing air quality modeling framework.  The primary products from this work will be models for the U.S. and southern California that will describe pollen and respirable pollen antigen concentrations, and air quality for recent and future decades for a range of emission and climate change scenarios, and estimates of the impacts that these exposures may have on allergic airway disease.

Progress Summary:

The first year of this project has focused on gathering data and the initial stages of model development.  To facilitate development of pollen dose-response functions, pollen measurements were to enable estimation of pollen exposures of 1173 children whose respiratory health was evaluated as part of the Children’s Health Study (CHS), a separate study being conducted by the USC members of the research team.  Pollen samples were collected in all eight CHS communities during the week prior to and the week during which health evaluations were performed.  Two samplers were placed in each of three communities to explore spatial variability in the measured pollen concentrations.  All of the pollen samples have been analyzed, and validated. 

In preparation for modeling pollen release, work has focused on understanding urban sources that are likely to be important factors in pollen exposures of individuals since the existing vegetation species composition and distribution datasets that have been developed and are maintained within the Biosphere-Atmosphere Interactions Group at NCAR are most reliable for natural, non-urban locations.  Tree inventories have been obtained for communities within the planned modeling domain, i.e., Long Beach, Los Angeles, and Riverside, California.  Model species have been selected based on their allergenicity for study using the initial, temperature-driven pollen release model.

Future Activities:

In the coming year, long duration pollen sampling will be undertaken at a number of locations within the CHS communities to probe the spatial variability in pollen exposures, particularly with respect to locations where historic pollen data are available and those where the CHS has accumulated health outcome data.  Dose response functions will be estimated using the data collected during the first year and estimated exposures for previous studies under the CHS.

 Laboratory experiments will be undertaken to investigate the release of pollen allergens in respirable particles through pollen rupture.   The vegetation cover database being assembled for Long Beach and Riverside will be completed, and efforts to characterize the remaining southern California domain will be initiated.  The pollen release model will initially be calibrated using oak pollen count data, and extended to other tree species and non-tree vegetation.

Regional air quality simulations will be performed using the WRF_MEGAN_CMAQ modeling framework with enhancement to MEGAN and CMAQ models to incorporate pollen release and conversion to respirable allergens.  Three sets of simulations are planned for the project: (1) retrospective simulations for spring 2010 in southern California, i.e., the time period of the intensive sampling and health evaluations studies that were performed during the first year of this project; (2) current-decade (1996-2003) simulations for the continental US (CONUS); and (3) future-decade simulations (2046-2055) for CONUS.  Modeling results for O₃, PM_2.5, pollen and respirable pollen allergen from the retrospective studies will be used in evaluation of dose response functions.  The dose-response functions will then be used in the future-decade simulations to elucidate changes in allergic disease that may result from climate change.

Journal Articles:

No journal articles submitted with this report: View all 13 publications for this project

Supplemental Keywords:

pollen; respirable allergen; pollen fragmentation; respiratory health; asthma; climate change; vegetation distribution;, RFA, Health, Air, climate change, Air Pollution Effects, Risk Assessments, Atmosphere, environmental monitoring, pollen, allergic airway disease, respiratory illness

Relevant Websites:

Caltech Pollen Group: http://pollen.che.caltech.edu/ Exit
NCAR Biosphere-Atmosphere Interactions Group:  http://bai.acd.ucar.edu/ Exit
Southern California Environmental Health Sciences Center: http://hydra.usc.edu/scehsc/ Exit
Washington State University Laboratory for Atmospheric Research: http://lar.wsu.edu/ Exit

Progress and Final Reports:

Original Abstract

2011 Progress Report

2012 Progress Report

Final Report