Greenville (South Carolina's) Rank as an Allergy Capital Spring 2012

Here is how Greenville, South Carolina has been ranked in the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America's lists of the top 100 most challenging places to live in the U.S. for: Spring Allergies, Fall Allergies, or Asthma.

 

Year	Spring Allergy rank	Fall Allergy rank	Asthma rank
2003	13	24	not done
2004	19	34	54
2005	6	32	58
2006*	2	1	68
2007	53	45	34
2008	17	2	8
2009	25	96	49
2010	28	44	59
2011	20	31	83
2012	21	37	97
2013	19	30	89
2014	46	100	69
2015	21	76	55
2016	32

updated 4/23/16

* = A good or bad year for us, depending on your perspective!

Commentary: Most of the top 50 cities in the Allergy Capitals lists are in the Southeastern U.S. The likely explanation is the highest pollen counts occur in the Southeastern U.S., because of the longer and warmer climate + greater vegetation which cause more allergies and so more medication use. These are two of three criteria used to determine the rankings. The table above can not be found in this format anywhere else on the internet.

If you are curious about how other cities were ranked this year only, go to the Allergy and Asthma Foundation of America's website or click on the link in the top left corner of this website. Prior year's rankings can be found by searching the internet. To see graphs of this years' pollen and mold counts, click here.

Addendum: 4/24/11
I disagree with the 3 measurements used to determine their rankings of Allergy Capitals:

• Pollen scores (airborne grass/tree/weed pollen and mold spores)*
• Number of allergy medications used per patient
• Number of allergy specialists per patient.

Many of the cities in the rankings do not have any pollen counting stations.  How then are their pollen scores calculated?  They must be estimated.  This is 33% of their score.  This greatly affects the rankings.  Physicians are humans also and so tend to live in larger cities and nicer areas.  This may boost the rankings of these cities.
Separately, Greenville ranks about 20th in the spring and about 42nd in the fall fairly consistently.The pollen counts are higher in the spring than in the fall, as it is for most of the SE US.
12/13/11 My other objection to the list is: how are the pollen and mold counts determined?  My office has been responsible for the pollen counts in Greenville since 2000.  We don't publish mold counts, because we use a Rotorod sampler, which does not count mold spores accurately.  Almost every site listed in the National Allergy Bureau's website uses the same sampler (private communication).  I also know the NAB does not monitor 100 other pollen and mold counting stations.  So where does the certified data come from?  I happen to have lived in Dayton, OH and I know the pollen counts weren't as high as Greenville's.  Perhaps the climate and vegetation has changed.