Australia's first pollen monitoring system a step closer

Field of grass

Allergic rhinitis, more commonly known as hay fever, affects 18 per cent of Australians each year, yet Australia is one of the few developed countries without a national pollen monitoring system.

Professor Alfredo Huete, from the UTS:Climate Change Cluster (C3), is part of a research team planning to change that with the official commencement of the AusPollen project, funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

The team of 10 researchers, led by Associate Professor Janet Davies from the Queensland University of Technology, received a $626,442 grant under the NHMRC Partnership Project for Better Health for “AusPollen: Implementation of a standardised national pollen alert system for better management of allergic respiratory health”.

“Pollen monitoring is very labour-intensive and difficult to keep up, maintain and get long-term funding to do,” Professor Huete says. Professor Huete leads the Ecosystem Dynamics, Health and Resilience research program within C3.

“This will be the first time a national ‘standardised’ network will be promoted.”

Read the full story on UTS Newsroom.

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