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Article History

Received: 3 May 2024

Accepted: 22 April 2025

First Online: 15 May 2025

Competing interests

: The authors declare no competing interests.

: All research was performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Following the communicative methodology and the criteria of co-creation pioneered by authors of this article, the ethical approval of this research has followed two phases. First, this research received the positive evaluation of its ethical procedures and standards by the by the Ministry of Science and Innovation’s research and development call in September 3rd, 2021. After this, other study participants were approached for the research through informed consent forms to co-create with them the concretion of the project’s implementation. In this phase, data gathering sites and methods were more detailed in co-creation with the Roma people, as well as possible benefits, risks, and other nuances assessed. Then, the second ethical approval was asked with the new details included. If done otherwise, the criteria of co-creation would not have been carried out, as participants would not have had the opportunity to change any details. The second ethical approval was received by the Ethical Committee of the Community of Research on Excellence for All (CREA) with reference number 20230212 on February 12, 2023. The ethical approval was received for the ethics protocol of the ROM21 project, which included research collaborations and locations, the research process, the study’s procedures, risk and benefit assessment, characteristics of the study population, informed consent process, and data security and management.

: Informed consent was obtained from each participant. Each participant completed and signed an informed consent document (written), which outlined the project’s objectives, the intended use of their data, the potential advantages and risks associated with their involvement, and the option to withdraw from the project at any point without adverse consequences. In addition, this informed consent was also recorded and ratified by participants in interview and focus group recordings. The informed consent form was provided to participants by members of the ROM21 research, and they had a contact person in the information sheet to address in case they had any other questions. These informed consents were obtained from February 2022 to May 2024. This process was done as specified and approved in the project’s ethical section by the funding call and body (Government of Spain’s State Programme for Research, Development, and Innovation Oriented to the Challenges of Society).