To raise awareness during National Asthma Awareness Month in the US, each day I will be publishing a post that identifies a city ranked in the Top 31 Allergy Capitals list as reported by the Allergy and Asthma Foundation’s Top Allergy Capitals report released this spring. Each day I will identify the DailyBreath Risk Index for that city for those with allergic asthma.
The DailyBreath Risk Index estimates the risk associated with confluence of weather, pollution, and pollen in a particular location. Weather conditions along with ozone, CO2, and PM 2.5 particulates and other pollutants all converge with pollen on any given day so a pollen count alone may not be sufficient to characterize how these conditions are impacting YOUR experience of the outdoors.
Your risk on any given day is also associated with the pollen count associated with YOUR offending allergen. Therefore, a pollen count associated with only ‘trees, grasses, or weeds’ is insufficient when your offending allergen is a specific species of tree, for example maple or oak or mountain cedar.
Understanding the species that are impacting you personally may support an allergy test or determine an allergen immunotherapy treatment path. Certainly, as you understand where in your community you are experiencing symptoms, you will begin to understand where your offending allergen is present and take steps to reduce your exposure to that allergen next time you are at that location. With DailyBreath, you will begin to measure the weather, allergens, and irritants (pollution) that are impacting your symptoms so that you can manage your triggers.
A unique feature of DailyBreath is the crowdsourcing of symptoms which shows you where others who have asthma are experience triggers which permits another lens through which you can plan your day outdoors accordingly. Each day this month, we will be featuring an allergy capital and encouraging those with allergic asthma within that community to download DailyBreath and start recording their symptoms so that your community can begin to learn its exposure footprint as it impacts asthma sufferers.
This is what we mean by informed, aware, and prepared. So download DailyBreath from the Apple App or Google Play store today and start pinpointing YOUR allergy triggers.