The Score for More campaign is uniting football and medicine to help fight sickle cell disease.
Duke Football recently partnered with Duke Children’s Hospital and Health Center in the first-ever Score for More campaign. The campaign was first developed by George Grody—former chairman of the national board of advisors for Duke Children's Hospital and current visiting associate professor of markets and management studies—to raise money and awareness for sickle cell disease research. The campaign took place in the weeks preceding the main event—the Duke football game against Tulane—Sept. 20.
“This will raise awareness that [sickle cell disease] is a very common blood disorder and it's not few and far in between. It's something that impacts people right here in our community, so I think people really are moved by knowing when things are impacting their neighbors or their friends or colleagues,” said Jenna Brown, Duke Children’s communications specialist.
Confronting an incurable disease
Individuals with sickle cell have an inadequate amount of oxygen in their blood due to sickle or crescent shaped red blood cells. Symptoms include fever, organ damage, infections, pain throughout the body and increased risk of stroke, said Jennifer Rothman, director of the Pediatric Comprehensive Sickle Cell Program.
This disease affects nearly 80,000 Americans with about 8,000 new cases each year. Sickle cell disease does not have a cure and although it occurs across all races, it is most prominent among black and Hispanic populations, Rothman said.
Within the PCSCP, Rothman works in combination with other doctors to help treat 380 children suffering from sickle cell disease from North Carolina and surrounding regions.
Thomas Kinney, sickle cell researcher and pediatric hematologist at Duke, helped develop newborn screening for the disease. Early detection allows doctors to implement early treatment and symptom prevention methods, which has increased the life expectancy of children living with sickle cell disease by 98 percent.
The goals of this program are to treat children with sickle cell disease as well as to educate them on their health status and provide the support through a comprehensive transition program that teaches them to be proactive in their healthcare, she added.
“It’s a much more difficult process than it sounds,” Rothman stated. “We try to make sure that [patients] are aware of what their risks are and how to avoid problems. Taking responsibility for their health care is really an important part of transitioning into adulthood.”
Patients with sickle cell are disadvantaged from the shortage of medications available to treat it. Rothman explained that the absence of diversity in available treatment options limits healthcare providers’ ability to offer care for people with this very serious and complex disease.
“If you think about it, if someone has high cholesterol, you have about thirty different choices of medicines to use. For sickle cell disease we have pain medicine and Hydroxyurea. That’s only one medicine that’s shown any effect on helping with sickle cell,” she said.
Luckily, a better understanding of the mechanisms of the disease has led to a host of new medications that have been proposed and are in their early stages of research, Rothman said.
“Having the personnel, the opportunity and the support to do this critical research is one of the reasons why we wanted to partner up with Duke Athletics to try to raise money and awareness for the research program,” said Rothman.
Partnership fosters "a strong connection"
To donate, people had a choice of online donation prior to the game, a pledge form for every touchdown and field goal, as well as a way to text in a donation during the game. As of Sept. 23, the first ever Score for More project raised $11,980.
“[The football partnership] forms a strong connection of being part of a community so it's really great to have Duke athletics being really involved with helping care for children that are part of this community,” Brown said.
The money raised goes towards helping families pay for necessities that come with the healthcare of their children. It will also contribute to the infrastructure of research programs devoted to the development of new treatments for sickle cell disease, Brown added.
Perhaps most significantly, the rise in public awareness of the disease applies pressure on the government to provide federal funding for sickle cell research.
“The money is great but more than anything it helps to bring awareness,” said Chris Alston, director of football marketing and promotion for Duke Athletics.
Representatives from both the hospital and Duke Athletics expressed excitement for the future of this program.
“The biggest thing is saying that this was year one of us working with Duke Children’s Hospital but we hope to continue the partnership and really grow it next year into the years beyond,” Alston stated.
This collaboration demonstrates Duke’s community spirit and the athletic department’s eagerness to show their support for Duke Children’s Hospital and the children living with sickle cell right here in Durham.
“We spend a lot of time talking about a lot of disorders that are incredibly rare but sickle cell is really not all that rare… It's important to increase awareness of this disease that people live with every day so that we can increase the programs that help fund research and health care for [these people],” Rothman said.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.