High pollen counts are associated with lower crime rates | Hacker News Reader

High pollen counts are associated with lower crime rates

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14 pointsEndXA10 comments

High pollen counts implies green space, which means lower population or area where funds are available to maintain green spaces, which means the is probably just another proxy for income levels (regardless of any attempts to control for income, etc)

The right answer.

We should start sprinkling pollen in high crime areas to prevent crime!

Maybe people's allergies will be too bad for them to commit crimes. Mine just make me want to sleep.

I think your analysis isn't quite right for three reasons.

The first is that pollen count isn't fully dictated by green space. Different species of plants give off varying amounts of pollen, not to mention the influence of wind patterns on pollen distribution especially over long distances.

The second is that low pop/greener areas in the US also tends to mean rural. Rural is usually connected with lower income, not higher. And it's usually lower income areas which see a greater percentage of reported crimes.

The third is that your claims are not really related to the article. The research was examining crime rates on high pollen days across cities, which would seem to cover both low and high income areas depending on how extensive their coverage was.

This just seems like a false correlation. Urban areas have more crime and less pollen, while suburban/rural areas have less people, less crime, and more pollen

As usual, coincidences are more common than people like to think. But even if the correlation is consistent, both could stem from a common cause.

Heat waves are usually blamed for high crime rates. Do we get less pollen then too?

Absolutely. If A and B are significantly correlated, either A causes B, or B causes A or X causes both.

The article itself, citing the study, presents some possible mechanisms through which such a reduction could be explained.

Don't weather reports include pollen measurements? I wonder if there is just less people outside on those days. Criminals might also have pollen allergies?

> Not that increasing pollen or health shocks is a tool to fight crime...

But it could be!

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