Tracking News & Updates

New Pollen Data Added

Person sneezing in front of a plant covered in pollen.

Spring is in the air...and so are pollen grains! New data from 2023 has been added to the Tracking Pollen in Vermont report, which shows average pollen counts per season, week, and day since 2009. People with allergies or other respiratory conditions, like asthma, should be aware of which types of pollen affect them to better manage symptoms.

The timing and length of pollen season, as well as the amount of pollen produced by plants, are impacted by climate change. Shifts in factors like yearly temperature and precipitation may result in pollen seasons that start at different times, last longer, or are more severe. Read the report for the most up-to-date yearly data and visit the Timberlane Allergy & Asthma Associates website for more information.

View the full report

New Real-Time Cold Illness Report

The Tracking Program has been working to update a real-time cold-related illness report and summary. The report shows the percentage of emergency room visits for cold-related illness for the current year and the historic average percentage of visits due to cold at that time of year. It is updated every Monday throughout the cold season (October through April).

Key findings from the summary include:

The 2022-2023 cold season was generally warmer than Vermont’s recent average monthly cold season temperatures.
The percentage of emergency department visits for cold-related illness during the 2022-2023 cold season was frequently greater than average.
The percentage of cold-related illness visits involving alcohol or other drugs has remained stable, and the percentage involving people who are unhoused has increased steadily.

A heat-related illness report is also available and updated every Monday starting in May and through September.

Learn more about climate & health tracking

Three Updated Data Reports Added

Three hospitalization data reports are back up on the Department of Health website after having been taken down for updates last year. Reports on inpatient hospitalizations and emergency department visits for asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and heart attacks are now available to view on the Tracking portal.

The asthma report shows that Black and African American Vermonters visit the emergency department for asthma at higher rates than White Vermonters, with a rate of 39 Black or African American patients per 10,000 visits and 14 White patients per 10,000 visits. Communities of color are disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards associated to chronic respiratory diseases due to systemic racism in the United States – the data shown calls for us to take a closer look at the systemic conditions causing Black and African American people to visit the emergency department for asthma at higher rates than White people.

Read the three updated reports and explore more data on the website.

Visit the tracking portal

About Environmental Public Health Tracking

The Vermont Tracking Program is part of a nationwide network of partners funded by the CDC. At the local, state, and national levels, the Tracking Program uses a network of people and information systems to deliver a core set of health, exposure, and hazards data, information summaries, and tools to enable analysis, visualization and reporting of insights drawn from data.

Visit the Vermont Tracking Program website