In the United States, most people who have sickle cell disease are African Americans. About 1 in 375 African-American children has sickle cell disease. Hispanic Americans from the Caribbean, Central America, and parts of South America also may have the disease. Sickle cell disease is also found in individuals from Turkey, Greece, Italy, the Middle East, or East India. All forms of sickle cell disease are inherited.
Children inherit genes for the disease from their parents.
Genes are substances within the father's sperm and the mother's egg that determine all of the physical characteristics of a baby. Children inherit the genes for hemoglobin from their parents. Persons who inherit both normal and sickle hemoglobin have sickle cell trait. Sickle cell trait is not a disease and does not change to disease. The individual sperm or egg from a person with sickle cell trait may contain either a gene for normal hemoglobin or a gene for sickle hemoglobin.