According to the CDC, sickle cell disease (SCD) is “a group of inherited red blood cell disorders. Red blood cells contain hemoglobin, a protein that carries oxygen. Healthy red blood cells are round, and they move through small blood vessels to carry oxygen to all parts of the body.”1
In someone who has SCD, the hemoglobin has an abnormal shape, “which causes the red blood cells to become hard and sticky and look like a C-shaped farm tool called a sickle. The sickle cells die early, which causes a constant shortage of red blood cells,” or anemia. “When they travel through small blood vessels, sickle cells get stuck and clog the blood flow. This can cause pain and other serious complications (health problems) such as infection, acute chest syndrome, and stroke.”2
“In the United States, most of the people with SCD are African Americans.” Current data show that “about 1 in 13 Black or African American babies are born with sickle cell trait,” and “about 1 in every 365 Black or African American babies are born with sickle cell disease.”3
This page provides data points and curated searches from OMH’s Knowledge Center library catalog related to sickle cell disease within minority populations in the United States and its territories. The number of catalog records for each topic reflect the search results at the time of this page’s latest update.
1 CDC. (2024). About sickle cell disease. Retrieved September 23, 2025, from https://www.cdc.gov/sickle-cell/about/ (Back to footnote)
2 CDC. (2024). About sickle cell disease. Retrieved September 23, 2025, from https://www.cdc.gov/sickle-cell/about/ (Back to footnote)
3 MedlinePlus. (2024). Sickle cell disease. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Library of Medicine. Retrieved September 23, 2025, from https://medlineplus.gov/sicklecelldisease.html (Back to footnote)
Date Last Reviewed: November 2025