Community

Help Build Sickle Cell Awareness In Your Community.

If You’re a Patient, a Parent, or At Risk…

Pregnant or thinking of having a baby? Ask for a screening test for sickle cell trait.
Send your partner for screening, too.
Remember to ask your baby’s doctor about your newborn’s screening results.
Educate yourself about sickle cell disease and its treatment.
Stay in touch with your/your child’s doctors and follow their instructions to stay healthy.
Tell your child’s school about special sickle cell needs upon enrollment.
Tell your employer about your sickle cell needs upon hiring.
Connect with a hospital that treats sickle cell BEFORE you have a crisis.

Understand that sickle cell families need support.
Stay in touch. Let them know you’re there to help.
Offer child care and transportation when it’s needed.
Encourage young adults to learn about their disease and stay
up-to-date with self-care.
Ask for screening for sickle cell trait, and If possible, donate blood.

Make sure your staff knows if a student has sickle cell disease.
Connect with Sickle Cell experts who can advise your students and staff
about sickle cell.
Hold an “Awareness Day” to educate teachers, staff and students about sickle cell.
Coordinate with your students’ parents and physicians to get help quickly in a crisis.
Have alternative learning plans available for students during illness.
Hold a blood drive at your school.

Make information about sickle cell available through your health services department.
Understand that your employees may have periods of absence when they or their children are in sickle cell crisis.
Support patients’ efforts to obtain routine medical care so they can stay well
and keep working hard.
Make family medical leave easily available.
Host blood drives.

Include sickle cell trait and disease on your patient history form.
Become familiar with the protocol for treating a sickle cell crisis.
Use the Sickle Cell Information Center – http://www.scinfo.org/ – as a resource.
Identify a sickle cell expert in your area.
Refer patients with the sickle cell trait to a genetic counselor.
Post information about sickle cell disease in your office.

You can help by displaying an awareness poster during September, or year-round, at your school, workplace, church, or any place people gather.