NewYork-Presbyterian Dalio Center for Health Justice Launches Sickle Cell Awareness Campaign with Special-Edition Basketball and #IBallforSickleCell Social Activation

The NewYork-Presbyterian Dalio Center for Health Justice announced the launch of the Sickle Cell Awareness Ball campaign, introducing a special-edition basketball designed with one crescent-shaped red panel to represent a sickle cell and stand out against minimalist black panels.

The campaign encourages the public to learn about sickle cell disease, a chronic condition that affects more than 100,000 people in the U.S., predominantly impacting Black and Hispanic Americans. NewYork-Presbyterian is also launching a social activation, encouraging people to film a trick shot and post it on social media using the hashtag #IBall4SickleCell.

Sickle cell disease is a group of genetic blood disorders that affects 20 million people worldwide. While healthy blood cells are round and move smoothly through the body, sickle cells have a crescent shape, which causes them to get stuck in blood vessels. This can have a severe, long-term impact on health that may start as early as infancy.

“We hope the public and other healthcare systems will join us in raising awareness about sickle cell disease,” says Dr. Steven J. Corwin, president and CEO of NewYork-Presbyterian. “NewYork-Presbyterian is committed to providing high-quality, innovative care for patients with this disease, and we are proud to raise awareness and do all we can to continue to advance promising new treatments and research.”

As part of this effort, NewYork-Presbyterian has committed $5 million to expand its clinical programs and support services for sickle cell patients.

At sicklecellball.com, the campaign site, people can learn more about the disease and the experiences of those who live with it and support funding for research and advances in treatment. To help raise awareness, NBA 2K, a basketball simulation video game series, includes the ball’s design in Season 1 of NBA 2K25, which was released on September 6.

“We hope people with sickle cell disease across the country feel seen and heard and that we can help shed light on a disease that has long been overlooked,” says Dr. Julia Iyasere, senior vice president and executive director of the NewYork-Presbyterian Dalio Center for Health Justice. “We know there is more we need to do as a healthcare community, more we must do. We’re excited to bring additional funding to this space to enhance care for sickle cell patients and expand access to high-quality care.”

In the U.S., sickle cell disease occurs in approximately one out of every 365 Black or African American births and about one out of every 16,300 Hispanic American births. Sickle cell disease has long been neglected, resulting in limited improvement in mortality in the last four decades. However, exciting breakthroughs in treatment offer new ways to combat this disease.

The campaign is funded by the NewYork-Presbyterian Dalio Center for Health Justice, which aims to understand and address the root causes of health inequities, including sickle cell disease, with the goal of improving the health of patients and communities. Special thanks to the National Basketball Association, National Basketball Players Association, and NBA 2K for their support of this initiative.