Prevalence of Seasonal and Food Allergies in all U.S. States

Abstract

Seasonal and food allergies are medical conditions that over 100 million people experience in the United States. Pollution does have a correlation to allergies, but the relationship hasn’t been fully defined yet. Previous studies have compared pollution and allergies between regions or singular states, but this paper expands on that by using data from every state. We’ll compare the prevalence rates of all allergies and specific allergies between rural and urban states to see if there are any noteworthy differences. To do this, we used data from recent research papers containing the prevalence of food and seasonal allergies in individual states and combined them to compare the prevalence of allergies in the U.S. Results showed a very small positive correlation between seasonal allergies and rural states, but an even smaller negative correlation between seasonal allergies and urban states. For food allergies, there is a very slight positive correlation between them and urban and rural states. More research is needed to get a more thorough picture of the effects of pollution on allergies at a local level. Understanding the ties between pollution and allergies can help cities, governments, and community leaders improve their communities so fewer people can get allergies.