We made available the ethics protocol, a list of sites that have obtained permission to collect data (categorized as described below), and the ethics certificates.
Each contributing lab was responsible for the IRB application at their site. Depending on sites’ local ethics regulations, the ethics permissions/applications were categorized into three. Category A: Sites that require IRB approval from a local ethics board and had to apply locally for ethics permission. Category B: Sites that can use ethics approval from a different ethics board. This group either adopted the ethics permission obtained by coordinating labs at Université Grenoble Alpes, France or other participating labs. Category C: Sites that did not require local institutionalized regulated ethics application/approval. These labs/sites provided exemption letters. In order to ensure the project meets ethical standards across different countries, we appointed an ethics coordinator (Dr. Dana Basnight-Brown).