Community Partners Join with CDU to Host a Health Fair Highlighting Sickle Cell Disease
Community Partners Join with CDU to Host a Health Fair Highlighting Sickle Cell Disease
COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
The CDU College of Medicine, the Sickle Cell Disease Foundation of California( SCDFC), and Healthy African-American Families, recently held a Fall Festival on the CDU campus. The event was cosponsored by Global Blood Therapeutics( GBT) and the University’ s Office of Strategic Advancement. The event was a family friendly, fun celebration, aimed at promoting greater awareness about screening, treatment, and supportive care for the disease while also providing food, games, and prizes for people of all ages.
The day began with lectures on the science and clinical features of sickle cell disease presented to the counselors of the CDU Saturday Science Academy. There were also presentations to attendees by the SCDFC on their California Newborn Screening program. As part of the newborn screening program, parents of infants identified with sickle cell trait, hemoglobin C trait and hemoglobin D trait are notified of the trait status and are offered hemoglobin trait counseling and family testing to identify if the parents are at risk for future children to be born with sickle cell disease. Newborn screening permits timely
diagnosis, initiation of penicillin prophylaxis, and establishment of comprehensive care by 2 months of age. Parent education can also begin early to assist with the understanding of the disease.
The SCDFC also highlighted their partnership with the Martin Luther King Jr. Outpatient Center for Adults with Sickle Cell Disease. Anthony Wells, onsite patient care and client intake coordinator at the Center who serves as a bridge between the community and the medical professionals noted,“ There are plenty of patients with no access to care. The biggest benefit of the adult care clinic is building awareness so that people in need of treatment know where to go … when people come to the clinic, they may have been out of care for five-ten years. The intent of client intake is to get patients moving on the right treatment path.”
There were also presentations by CDU’ s Drs. Sheila Young and Tiffany Davis about resources for patients with sickle cell disease and CDU’ s family medicine resident practice. Attendees also learned about research on blood disorders at City of Hope and the CDU Cancer Research Center.
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