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Aerobiology in mass media in Croatia

Allergic diseases are among the most widespread diseases and represent significant public health problem. This problem is also recognized in Croatia and therefore it is of great importance to inform citizens on daily load of allergens. Croatia has 16 monitoring stations that all use Hirst-type samplers. For screening of slides was used horizontal sweeps method. Stations cover the continental and Mediterranean part of the country. As the flora is specific for each part, this information is useful to local citizens as well as the tourists. Teaching Institute of Public Health Dr Andrija Stampar is a coordinator of pollen forecast for entire Croatia. We collect data from monitoring stations and reproduce them daily (or twice weekly) as a unique information on our web site. Among these 16 cities, 6 of them have continuous every day monitoring (using daily sampling head) and this information on daily pollen load is well accepted in public. Information is shown in Android and iPhone app. In a form of colour and following number scale. This enables our citizens to continuously follow pollen forecast and control their symptoms. Since the application was launched, other media (radio, television, newspapers...) recognized the importance of such information. Due to constant enquiries of citizens, each pollen season is followed by numerous articles, TV reports, talk shows, radio advertising and education of both children and adults on the allergenic plants.

aerobiology; mass-media; pollen forecast; pollen

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