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Article History

Received: 18 October 2021

Accepted: 28 February 2023

First Online: 27 March 2023

Inclusion and ethics statement

: The work which led to this publication was done in South Africa by local scientists, field workers, and researchers. The data utilised in this study was generated by AWI-Gen, one of the H3Africa Consortium groups, and HAALSI (a South African MRC and Harvard collaboration). The men and women recruited from this region in South Africa consented to participate in these studies. Both larger studies and this specific research were approved by local ethics committees mentioned in the Methods section. C.C.S., M.R., A.C., J.-T.B. and S.T. are members of AWI-Gen and are based either at SBIMB or the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. M.R. and S.T. are principal investigators, A.C. was involved in the development of the H3Africa array, C.C.S. was involved in the development of the questionnaires and sample processing and preparation through the SBIMB Biobank, and J.-T.B. and A.C. helped develop and refine the various bioinformatics pipelines used for this study. S.T. and L.B. are the principal investigators of HAALSI, for which C.C.S. and M.R. were involved in the harmonisation of these two African studies. Both AWI-Gen and HAALSI were funded with specific aims of building local capacity in terms of infrastructure, research, and publications, with data generated under embargo until publication by members. The impact of these projects has been to make African genomics more visible. Furthermore, we have cited both local and regional publications coming from Africa in this study. In order to prevent any stigma which may be associated with this research, we looked at population-standardised latent cognitive function and stressed that we were not assessing intelligence or IQ. The data has also been anonymised to maintain the confidentiality of these older research participants.

: The authors declare no competing interests.