Impact of the city environment on human health: the case of the city of Beni Mellal in Morocco

BACKGROUNDToday, the number of allergy is increasing in industrialized countries. The World Health Organization (WHO) classifies allergic diseases to be the fourth in the world of affections. WHO considers that these diseases are a major public health problem in terms of quality of life, loss of work days, teaching, drug and even mortality cost.The frequency of respiratory allergies including asthma and allergic rhinitis due to pollens is increasing in the young and urban dwellers in developed countries. METHODS: For this project, we chose Polydisciplinary Faculty of Beni-Mellal (FPBM) located in the center of Morocco as a place for the study of pollen allergy. It is a public institution of higher education, that receives thousands of students from different parts of the region which is characterized by its vegetation richness. The project was to study pollen allergy in FPBM in an effective sample of 529 randomly chosen within a range of about 7,000 students. A survey was made for a descriptive studies. Results: The percentage of students allergic to pollen surveyed in the FPBM was 39%. This percentage was within the confidence interval of all students in the allergic FPBM [35%; 44%] estimated 5% error risk. This results prove that our sample was representative. We also found that the allergic to pollen presents a significant percentage of 40.5% for female compared to 36.6% for male. Our study shows that the olive tree is the main allergen causing pollen allergy. The majority of the surveyed students are allergic to one or two types of plants. The most common symptoms of pollen allergy among its students are the nasal symptoms (sneezing and nasal itching).This study shows that most students have allergies in the spring season. Our study shows also that the cross-reactivity between pollen and food was the most dominant CONCLUSIONS: The high percentage of students allergic to pollen surveyed in the FPBM might be explained by the wealth of the region in vegetation. We suggested that the difference seen beteween female and male is due to physiological and hormonal differences between the sexes. Olive tree was the main allergen ,this can be explained by the richness of the region of Beni-Mellal-Khénifra with this plant.