The Spina Bifida Genetics Research Project welcomes participants from outside of the U.S. and has put into place the capacity to make participation easy.

If you live in Australia, Canada or the U.K., we will provide you with a pre-addressed, stamped envelope for sending your completed saliva kit to a commercial forwarder, who will complete the necessary customs forms for delivery to our laboratory in the U.S.  Mailing saliva kits domestically normally does not require any documentation. 

If you live in the E.U., but not in the U.K., we cannot currently provide with you postage to our forwarder in London, but we will reimburse you for the cost of the stamps, which shouldn't be more than €2.

If you live anywhere else, you will need to go to the Post Office and complete a customs declaration form.  We will reimburse you for the cost of the postage and any fees charged for sending the envelope to the U.S.  We are currently working with Spina Bifida advocacy organizations in several countries to see if they can help with the logistics of returning samples, so check with us to see if we can make it easier.

Because our consent and enrollment materials are available only in English and Spanish, we require that all participants are conversant in one of those languages.   There are no other restrictions on participation for people who do not live in the United States.

If you have questions about how you can participate from outside the U.S., please click here.