The US Census Bureau and the US Office of Budget and Management approved the NESARC protocol. More comprehensive accounts of the NESARC procedures are available elsewhere [25]. As per US Census Bureau regulations, all participants gave written informed consent; all NESARC data are classified as restricted access and are available only to persons of Special Sworn Status who are trained to maintain confidentiality of personally-identifiable and other sensitive information. The data are only accessed after administrative approval of a formal analysis request, and all output are inspected to verify that there is no disclosure of sensitive information. Participants’ records/information was anonymized and de-identified prior to analysis.
