Short-term effect of pollen exposure on antiallergic drug consumption.

Background: Several studies have investigated the association between pollen exposure and asthma emergency admissions, but only 2 have investigated the effect of airborne allergens on consultations for rhinitis or conjunctivitis and none has used drug consumption as the health indicator.

Objective: To analyze the short-term association between pollen exposure and antiallergic drug consumption in the urban area of Clermont-Ferrand, France, taking into account the potentially confounding effect of air pollution and meteorological factors.

Methods: We used the French health insurance database to select all individuals from the Clermont-Ferrand urban area having benefited from reimbursement for antiallergic treatment from January 1, 2000, through December 31, 2001, and from January 1, 2003, through December 31, 2004.

Short-term effects of airborne pollen on the risk of allergic rhinoconjunctivitis.

The authors carried out a pilot study in Clermont-Ferrand (France) over the period from 2000 to 2001 to analyze the short-term relationship between daily variations in rhinitis and allergic conjunctivitis and daily variations in pollen counts. Data from the ERASME database made it possible to identify all the individuals for whom at least one drug was prescribed to treat rhinitis or allergic conjunctivitis. Ten allergenic pollens were studied, and a Poisson regression model with penalized spline functions was used.