Investigation of the Sustainability of Pollen Monitoring (SPM)

Worldwide over 500 million people are affected by allergic rhinitis. Pollen monitoring services globally provide pollen information to allergy sufferers for symptom management. Despite the increasing prevalence of allergic rhinitis, generating, disseminating, and sustaining pollen monitoring information continues to remain a challenge. The funding for maintaining pollen monitoring networks in Australia and many other countries is available only for the short-term projects with durations ranging from one to four-year dependent on availability of relevant grant schemes and outcomes of competitive grant application review. There is a great need for communities to have continuous access to standardized quality pollen exposure information in a timely manner to manage allergic respiratory diseases. This project focuses on how all pollen monitoring networks globally manage their funding and sustain the provision of airborne pollen information to the community and other stakeholders. This includes health departments, meteorology organisations and non-government foundations. The purpose of this project is to investigate the various ways in which pollen monitoring stations are managed and sustained in different countries and regions of the world. Outcomes of this project will provide insights to develop a sustainable approach to delivering continuous pollen monitoring information to the community.