Ethical issues when carrying out research
Are going through a time of profound change in our understanding of the ethics d social research. There was a gradually developing consensus about the key ethical principles underlie the research endeavor. Cancer patients and persons fought publicly with the medical research establishment about the long time needed approval for and complete research into potential cures for fatal diseases. But now, those who were threatened illness were saying to the research establishment that they wanted to be ts, even under experimental conditions of considerable risk. You had several and articulate patient groups who wanted to be experimented on coming up against l review system that was designed to protect them from being experimented gh the last few years in the ethics of research have been tumultuous ones, it ing to appear that a new consensus is evolving that involves the stakeholder affected by a problem participating more actively in the formulation of research. Allowing anyone who is willing to be are a number of key phrases that describe the system of ethical protections contemporary social and medical research establishment have created to try to the rights of their research participants. The principle of ipation requires that people not be coerced into participating in is especially relevant where researchers had previously relied on 'captive audiences'. Closely related to of voluntary participation is the requirement of informed ially, this means that prospective research participants must be fully the procedures and risks involved in research and must give their consent ipate. Ethical standards also require that researchers not put participants in ion where they might be at risk of harm as a result of ipation. There are rds that are applied in order to help protect the privacy of research all research guarantees the participants confidentiality -- they d that identifying information will not be made available to anyone who is ly involved in the study. Increasingly, researchers have had to deal with the ethical issue of 's right to service. But when that treatment or program may cial effects, persons assigned to the no-treatment control may feel their rights access to services are being when clear ethical standards and principles exist, there will be times when to do accurate research runs up against the rights of potential participants. Furthermore, there be a procedure that assures that researchers will consider all relevant ethical formulating research plans. To address such needs most institutions and formulated an institutional review board (irb), a panel of persons s grant proposals with respect to ethical implications and decides onal actions need to be taken to assure the safety and rights of participants. Ing proposals for research, irbs also help to protect both the organization and cher against potential legal implications of neglecting to address important of ght 2006, william m. Trochim, all rights se a printed copy of the research methods revised: 10/20/ble of contentsnavigatingfoundationslanguage of researchphilosophy of researchethics in researchconceptualizingevaluation re › research methods › research logy research mcleod published 2007, updated refers to the correct rules of conduct necessary when carrying out research. We have a moral responsibility to protect research participants from r important the issue under investigation psychologists need to remember that they have a duty to respect the rights and dignity of research participants. This means that they must abide by certain moral principles and rules of britain ethical guidelines for research are published by the british psychological society and in america by the american psychological association.
The purpose of these codes of conduct is to protect research participants, the reputation of psychology and psychologists issues rarely yield a simple, unambiguous, right or wrong answer. It is therefore often a matter of judgement whether the research is justified or not. Rosenthal and rosnow (1984) also talk about the potential costs of failing to carry out certain research. If you are ever in doubt as to whether research is ethical or not it is worthwhile remembering that if there is a conflict of interest between the participants and the researcher it is the interests of the subjects that should take s must now undergo an extensive review by an institutional review board (us) or ethics committee (uk) before they are implemented. All uk research requires ethical approval by one or more of the following:(a) department ethics committee (dec): for most. Review proposals to assess if the potential benefits of the research are justifiable in the light of possible risk of physical or psychological harm. These committees may request researchers make changes to the study's design or procedure, or in extreme cases deny approval of the study british psychological society (bps) and american psychological association (apa) have both issued a code of ethics in psychology that provides guidelines for the conduct of research. Some of the more important ethical issues are as follows:Whenever possible investigators should obtain the consent of participants. In other words the psychologist should, so far as is practicable explain what is involved in advance and obtain the informed consent of the study begins the researcher must outline to the participants what the research is about, and then ask their consent (i. Where it is impossible researcher to ask the actual participants, r group of people can be asked how feel about taking part. These include not only physical injury but also possible ures involved in the ts of the research to society and possibly to the individual human of time the subject is expected to to contact for answers to questions or in the event of injury or ts' right to confidentiality and the right to withdraw from the study at any time without any the research is over the participant should be able to discuss the procedure and the findings with the psychologist. They must be given a general idea of what the researcher was investigating and why, and their part in the research should be ipants must be told if they have been deceived and given reasons why. The purpose of debriefing is to remove any misconceptions and anxieties that the participants have about the research and to leave them with a sense of dignity, knowledge, and a perception of time not wasted” (harris, 1998). Of chers must ensure that those taking part in research will not be caused distress. Participants should not be exposed to risks greater than or additional to those encountered in their normal researcher must also ensure that if vulnerable groups are to be used (elderly, disabled, children, etc. For example, if studying children, make sure their participation is brief as they get tired easily and have a limited attention chers are not always accurately able to predict the risks of taking part in a study and in some cases a therapeutic debriefing may be necessary if participants have become disturbed during the research (as happened to some participants in zimbardo’s prisoners/guards study). Failure to disclose full information about the study, or creating researcher should avoid deceiving participants about the nature of the research unless there is no alternative – and even then this would need to be judged acceptable by an independent expert. However, there are some types of research that cannot be carried out without at least some element of example, in milgram’s study of obedience the participants thought they there giving electric shocks to a learner when they answered a question wrong.
The clues in an experiment which lead participants to think they know what the researcher is looking for). Researchers can determine whether participants are likely to be distressed when deception is disclosed, by consulting culturally relevant groups. If the participant is likely to object or be distressed once they discover the true nature of the research at debriefing, then the study is you have gained participants’ informed consent by deception, then they will have agreed to take part without actually knowing what they were consenting to. The true nature of the research should be revealed at the earliest possible opportunity, or at least during researchers argue that deception can never be justified and object to this practice as it (i) violates an individual’s right to choose to participate; (ii) is a questionable basis on which to build a discipline; and (iii) leads to distrust of psychology in the entialityparticipants, and the data gained from them must be kept anonymous unless they give their full consent. No names must be used in a research do we do if we find out something which should be disclosed (e. Researchers have no legal obligation to disclose criminal acts and have to determine which is the most important consideration: their duty to the participant vs. They should not have pressure placed upon them to continue if they do not want to (a guideline flouted in milgram’s research). American psychologist, 39(5), raduate ethics and psychology l issues planning psychology ethics lecture ogs, foxes, and the evolving social contract in psychological science: ethical challenges and methodological practice guidelines for the conduct of psychological research within the ines for psychologists working with ines for ethical practice in psychological research ethical principles of psychologists and code of tion of , while you are here please could you kindly share this website:Home | about | a-z index | privacy policy follow workis licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-no derivative works 3. Unported y registration no: › research methods › research logy research mcleod published 2007, updated refers to the correct rules of conduct necessary when carrying out research. Unported y registration no: l considerations for research on housing-related health hazards involving r: 7 researchers' /10766 to get more information about this book, to buy it in print, or to download it as a free pdf. Researchers need to consider, first, whether their research is likely to present inconvenience or harm to potential third parties who are not otherwise involved with the research. Moreover, researchers cannot avoid making observations that are unrelated to the research question at hand but may be relevant to the health and well-being of the children who are the subjects of the research or other household members (gordis, 1991). For example, researchers described to the committee sometimes observing housing code violations, illegal drug use, firearms, and even suspected child abuse or neglect. Researchers face the ethical dilemma of what if any action to take in the face of conflicting ethical and legal obligations to protect children from harm and to respect privacy and investigators carrying out research with human participants have legal and ethical responsibilities under the common rule (see chapter 3) and the standards of institutional review boards (irbs), such as obtaining informed consent, ensuring the risks of research are proportional to the expected benefits, and minimizing risks. Previous chapters recommended involving community representatives and ensuring fully informed and voluntary parental permission for children to enroll in research. In this chapter we discuss other ethical issues and obligations: innovative research designs; reporting test results that have not been validated; potential third parties who may be affected but are ted citation:"7 researchers' responsibilities. Participants; and researchers’ role-specific obligations to develop plans for responding to risks that are incidentally observed when they enter children’s homes. On these issues we point out how the perspectives of community representatives may differ from those of researchers.
Hence, the process of understanding and responding to the views of community representatives as described in chapter 5 is also important for helping researchers clarify their ethical responsibilities. Variety of study designs are used in housing health hazards research to obtain information on hazards and to test methods to reduce health risks. The study design chosen by researchers depends on the aims of the study, existing knowledge on the topic, and the perceived magnitude of the hazard. Well-designed and well-executed research is necessary to improve the health of children living in poor-quality housing. For some large-scale intervention studies, the approach might include conducting a small pilot study to minimize the potential for unanticipated negative consequences prior to implementation of the full research the most basic level, there are observational studies that describe or enumerate specific hazards associated with housing, such as case reports, surveillance by public health agencies, or descriptive studies by researchers. Studies on asthma in children, for example, indicate that it is associated with multiple indoor pollutants, including settled allergens (cockroach, dust mite, cat and dog), environmental tobacco smoke, and mold or fungi (institute ted citation:"7 researchers' responsibilities. Moreover, with housing hazards, some effective interventions—such as moving a child to housing without the hazard—may not be feasible because of resource evaluate interventions, researchers conduct experimental studies that compare outcomes in a group that receives an intervention with outcomes in a control group. Rigorous clinical trials on housing health hazards can provide the evidence base for promulgating intervention “best practices,” regulatory standards, and health-based benchmarks for interpreting environmental or human biomonitoring a clinical trial, an important question is whether it is ethically acceptable to randomly assign participants to intervention and control groups. The term “research equipoise” has been coined to describe the genuine uncertainty that should exist about whether the intervention or control arm is better (freedman, 1987, as cited in national bioethics advisory committee, 2001). Rather, research equipoise requires approximate equality in the relation between the risks and potential benefits of the study and control interventions. The committee believed that in clinical trials expert practitioners should make judgments about research equipoise. In housing health hazards research, however, the assessments of risks and benefits by researchers may differ from those of community representatives or the parents of potential child subjects, as discussed in chapter 5. Thus, for research on housing health hazards in children, the assessment of research equipoise should balance scientific expertise and the views of community interventions may attempt to affect a clinical or behavioral outcome in child subjects, a change in their housing environment, or ted citation:"7 researchers' responsibilities. Often the control group receives the best current practice; however, ethical dilemmas arise in housing health hazard research if the best current practice is considered impracticable. The ethical concern is whether the study is harming members of the control group by withholding or delaying an intervention believed to offer them the prospect of direct ining whether a particular clinical trial is ethically acceptable requires value judgments about the weight of the evidence, the level of uncertainty, and the potential effects of the research study on changing housing standards or policies. Community residents may have different judgments than researchers or ity representatives often ask that research provide some direct benefit to those in both the intervention and control groups, as well as to the community. Although the researchers were concerned that this would diminish the ability of the study to demonstrate the impact of the full intervention, community members felt that providing benefit to all participants was more important (krieger et al. Ultimately, the seattle partnership reached consensus that the evaluation of the intervention was “less convincing because it did not have a usual-care ted citation:"7 researchers' responsibilities.
In the renewal grant for the project, the study had a usual-care control group that will receive the intervention after a delay of one tive study designs can offer a benefit to both the intervention and control groups and thereby resolve some of the ethical concerns about housing health hazards research. These various designs that provide the prospect of direct benefit to all child subjects can eliminate or reduce ethical concerns about placing vulnerable children at inappropriate ing of test chers commonly carry out experimental tests on samples collected from child subjects or their environments. Indeed, a goal of the research might be to establish the validity of such tests or to determine the health implications of the results. Ethical dilemmas may arise if parents of child subjects or community representatives believe individual parents should have the results of those tests. On one hand, information whose significance is unknown or uncertain may not provide objective benefit to parents; on the other hand, respect for persons may imply that parents should be the ones to judge whether they want information that researchers have obtained about themselves or their homes. The particular salience of the issue of reporting test results in housing health hazards research was highlighted by the grimes case (see chapter 3), in which plaintiffs charged that the researchers failed to provide them information about the level of lead in dust in the homes in a timely manner; the significance of the measurements was not s of housing health hazards often collect human tissue samples, such as blood or urine, to establish the child subject’s exposure, health effects, or susceptibility to a specific health outcome. Several issues arise with regard to the reporting of test results to parents: the validity of the tests, the time frame for reporting results, and the parents’ expectations. Occur in biomedical research, when the validity and clinical significance of certain tests may not be housing health hazards research, both routine clinical tests and experimental tests may be done, depending on the study design and the problem under investigation. Blood lead measurements are an example of a clinical test often used in housing health hazards research: test results can be obtained from certified laboratories within days or weeks of sample collection and have established health benchmarks (centers for disease control and prevention, 1991). If researchers carry out tests that are also used in clinical practice, they typically provide patients or their physicians with the results, a description of the normal range of values, and the implications of results outside the normal range. Providing results of clinical tests in the range of concern to parents of child subjects in a timely manner is ethically required because it allows appropriate medical follow-up to be contrast, experimental tests may have uncertain validity. Indeed, one goal of the research may be to determine the validity of a new method of measuring a variable or the strength of an association between a new measurement and a clinically meaningful outcome. Clinical validity refers to the probability that a test result correctly diagnoses a condition or predicts a disease or clinical research on housing health hazards, some experimental tests may be carried out to help characterize the extent of potential exposure. The significance of results from such experimental tests for an individual subject may be unknown or uncertain until long after the samples have been collected, often not until all study data have been analyzed, and sometimes not even ted citation:"7 researchers' responsibilities. Issues in threshold criteria in determining whether to share test results are typically whether the results are valid in the two senses discussed above. In biomedical research, when the validity of experimental tests on biological specimens is not established, individual results generally are not reported to participants. For example, a model consent form for genetics studies states that “the study is not meant to test your personal medical status” and that participants will not receive the results of research on their sample (beskow et al. In some cases, some validity of the test can be established at the completion of the study; if so, the researchers may agree to then offer the tests some studies, community representatives or parents of prospective child subjects may believe that parents have a “right to know” information that researchers have obtained about their children regardless of whether the validity of the tests have been established.
They may not trust or may disagree with researchers’ judgments that the significance of the results is not known. Researchers report that in some cases community groups would like the results of experimental tests (such as urinary pesticide metabolite levels) without clear clinical implications to be nonetheless made available to the tested individuals if requested (eskenazi et al. Such disagreements arise, researchers have several ethical obligations that are not spelled out in the federal regulations. In some cases, researchers may persuade community representatives that there is little benefit and much risk to making results of unvalidated experimental tests available. In other cases, the community may persuade researchers that the results of individual tests should be made available to all the parents whose children are in the researchers decide to make results of experimental tests available, they need to consider how to do so in ways that minimize the harms and maximize the benefits of providing results. First, the researchers should offer parents a choice of whether or not to receive results of experimental tests. Third, the researchers need to make clear during the informed consent process whether, when, and how the results of experimental tests will be offered to parents. In some cases, the health significance of particular test results will become known over time, for example, as research on a particular biomarker advances. Parents should be told in the informed consent process what the researcher will do in such situations. Measurement of a particular hazard in the home) may suggest a hazard to other residents in the household; researchers should consider how to provide them information about the findings, taking into account the wishes of the subjects’ address these ethical dilemmas, researchers should discuss experimental tests that are part of the research protocol with the community (see chapter 5) and should ensure that the informed consent process includes thorough disclosure of whether, when, and how the results of such tests will be shared with parents (see chapter 6). Research on housing health hazards in homes can have unintended consequences for individuals who are not study participants (“subjects,” as defined in the federal regulations)—individuals with whom researchers interact or about whom they collect identifiable information. If third parties meet either of these criteria, researchers must obtain their informed consent (see chapter 6). However, even if the federal regulations do not consider them research participants, people living in the same household, the same multiunit dwelling, or the same neighborhood as a study subject may be affected by research. Researchers may have ethical obligations to such third household residents may experience psychosocial harms, such as embarrassment or shame, if they or other residents are observed to be living in substandard housing or engaging in certain behaviors, such as alcohol abuse. Residents may also face legal liability if they are identified as carrying out illegal activities in their homes. In addition, residents may encounter physical risks, such as exposure to noise or dust, resulting from procedures carried out as part of the study: if these other residents are not notified, they cannot make plans to be out of the chers need to anticipate and make plans for the effect of their research on other household residents. Such notification gives other residents an opportunity to be absent from the home when the research interventions are carried out so that they are not inconvenienced by interviews, inspections, or repairs and so that their privacy is not ch carried out in rental properties can have consequences for landlords. Researchers need to examine the specific terms of a lease for any restraints on the normal right of the occupant to invite any law-abiding person into the dwelling and to make minor improvements, such as installing battery-powered smoke alarms.
If researchers propose to make significant structural changes to the home, such as installing new windows, the permission of the owner needs to be obtained. Researchers should also take reasonable steps to provide information to landlords about possible public resources for helping to correct housing hazards and code violations, particularly if such hazards might be reported to ors may also experience adverse consequences of research. In the case of pest control, for example, researchers might reframe the study intervention to carry out pest management throughout a building rather than in a single unit to avoid causing harms to residents of other units. In other research studies, such as when repairs are made to a single unit, researchers should provide neighbors whatever notice would be expected if the landlord or tenant were carrying out similar activities outside the research context. Is important to note that third parties may benefit from research as well as suffer inconvenience or risks. The diffusion of information from families participating in a research study to neighbors may result in the neighbors’ altering their health behaviors and reducing their exposure to hazards. Landlords benefit if the research involves such improvements as pest control, the installation of smoke detectors, or other interventions that increase the quality and value of their ity groups may also be third parties in many housing-related research studies. Often, community groups seek to have local residents hired as research staff and receive training that will enhance their employability in the future. Furthermore, the community may want researchers to specify how they will present the project’s findings when it is completed so that the community can use the new knowledge, for example, to advocate for funding of effective interventions. Researchers should also present relevant findings—either on their own or in conjunction with community representatives—to local, state, or federal officials and testify at pubic hearings to support evidence-based public policies that would ameliorate housing health hazards. Researchers cannot be expected to ensure that research findings are fully implemented, but these steps can help the community benefit from the findings. Researchers should develop a plan to disseminate results to the families participating in the study, as well as the affected appropriate actions regarding third parties will vary according to the particular study and need to be determined on a case-by-case basis, following the general ethical guidelines of respect for persons, beneficence, and justice. Consulting with community representatives and parents of potential child subjects will help researchers understand the full range of a project’s potential effects, as well as what those people believe researchers need to do to fulfill their ethical obligations (see chapter 5). Considering risks to third parties, researchers need to focus on risks that are foreseeable and significant rather than those that are conceivable but extremely unlikely or of minor importance. It is important not to place requirements on researchers that are overly broad, vague, or open-ended, lest they deter important, soundly designed research that is intended to alleviate housing health hazards that are disproportionately severe in vulnerable gh research staff are not technically “third parties,” the committee notes the responsibilities of a project’s leaders regarding the physical safety of staff working in the communities and entering child subjects’ homes. These risks to staff may be greater than when research is carried out in a medical institution. As with all research, housing health hazards researchers have an obligation to consider the safety of their staff and to develop plans appropriate to their particular research project: such plans might include having staff conduct home visits in pairs or only during daylight hours or providing staff with cell observed in researchers enter homes for their work, they cannot avoid making observations beyond the information collected as part of the ted citation:"7 researchers' responsibilities. If a researcher learns about environmental hazards or behaviors by others that place a child in imminent risk of serious harm, there may be a legal requirement to report such information to specific authorities.
In addition, the child at risk or the person(s) engaging in behavior that puts a child at risk may not be a participant in the research study (as defined in the federal regulations). The researcher may have no prior relationship with those being observed and may be viewed as invading their entiality must be distinguished from the related concept of privacy. Confidentiality refers to limits on the dissemination of information disclosed by a person within a special professional relationship, such as the doctor-patient relationship or participant-researcher relationship (beauchamp and childress, 2001). Furthermore, researchers often promise confidentiality of research data, with certain limitations, during the informed consent process. To take steps to protect the patient or third parties, the physician would have to breach confidentiality; the ethical issue is whether it is appropriate to do so. In housing health hazards research, a researcher who has permission to enter a home to collect research data might incidentally observe evidence of child abuse or domestic violence, even though these are not the topic of the research. Here the ethical issue is whether it is appropriate to use information obtained under permission to collect research data for purposes that go beyond the scope of this ding confidentiality in such situations poses dilemmas for researchers because several strong ethical guidelines may be in conflict. First, researchers have an ethical or professional obligation to try to prevent harm to children who cannot protect themselves. In some situations, they may also have legal responsibilities through statutory reporting duties, ted citation:"7 researchers' responsibilities. On who is making the observation and in what state the research is being conducted. Third, researchers have an ethical obligation to respect the privacy and confidentiality of the residents of the homes in which their research is being carried out. Far-ranging interventions by researchers, even if intended to benefit residents of the household, may be considered meddlesome intrusions by them. In addition, privacy and confidentiality have instrumental research value by making it more likely that people will agree to participate in clinical medicine and public health, confidentiality may be overridden in certain situations to protect a person or third party from harm without legal repercussions; in some situations confidentiality must or may be overridden. Widely accepted ethical guidelines (beauchamp and childress, 2001; gostin, 2000; lo, 2000) identify such situations in which confidentiality may or must be overridden to protect a person or third party from harm:The potential harm to identifiable persons is of serious magnitude and high ing confidentiality will allow steps to be taken to prevent is no less invasive alternative to overriding confidentiality for warning or protecting those at resulting from the breach of confidentiality are minimized and acceptable. Disclosure should be limited to information essential for the intended purpose, and only those persons with a need to know should receive the more of these criteria that apply, the stronger are the ethical reasons for an obligation or a license to disclose confidential information. These guidelines form the ethical underpinnings of laws and regulations regarding the confidentiality of personal health information. This approach of balancing the likelihood of preventing serious harm against the harms caused by a breach of confidentiality can help researchers respond to risks they observe. The informed consent process (see chapter 6) should clearly specify the situations in which confidentiality will be ted citation:"7 researchers' responsibilities.
Specific researcher physicians provide medical services to patients, they have a clear ethical duty to place the interests of the patient above their own self-interest or the interests of third parties, such as insurers. In addition, research participants are familiar with relating to health professionals in the clinical setting and expect such professionals have their interests at clinical care, the primary objective of research is not to benefit participants directly, but rather to produce generalizable knowledge. While investigators are not obligated to act solely in the interests of individual participants, they have legal duties to protect them by obtaining informed consent, ensuring that the risks of research are proportional to the expected benefits, and minimizing risks. In particular, investigators need to inform participants about the interventions that will be carried out during the research and their risks and benefits. In addition, researchers must guard against the possibility of conflating research and clinical discussed above and in previous chapters, two role-specific obligations are (1) to provide information beyond that required in the federal regulations, if appropriate, for parents to decide whether to enroll their children in the research project (see chapter 6) and (2) to have a plan to deal with risks observed in homes that are unrelated to the addition, researchers may be in a special position to prevent harms from housing health hazards because they have expertise about housing hazards and a unique opportunity to intervene because they are in subjects’ homes. If researchers do not act, an opportunity to prevent serious harm may be lost because no one else with similar expertise observes the conditions. Moreover, parents of research subjects are likely to expect that investigators will inform them if environmental hazards detrimental to their health are discovered in the course of the research, even if those hazards are not the focus of study. These characteristics—their expertise, the unique opportunities to prevent harm, and the reliance and expectations that parents place on them—distinguish researchers from a plumber or electrician who enters someone’s home and is expected to carry out only a specific gh some research critics argue that researchers who observe children in poor housing environments should “rescue” these children from harm and provider better living conditions (see sherav, 2003), this seems an unreasonable expectation in most situations. Nor do researchers have an obligation to eliminate all housing health hazards in the households ted citation:"7 researchers' responsibilities. The appropriate course of action will depend on the specific situation: the type of risk identified, who experiences the risk, the nature of the research project, and the availability of community chers have an ethical obligation to anticipate what kinds of risk they are likely to observe, to develop reasonable plans to address anticipated risks which include procedures for how staff will be expected to respond to specific risks, and to train staff on these plans. Researchers also have an obligation to discuss how they will respond to such risks as part of the informed consent process. The first step for researchers is to consult with community representatives to identify likely risks and community ity ity representatives can help researchers identify and understand risks that they are likely to observe. They can also help researchers understand what responses to these risks might be considered acceptable and effective by families likely to participate in the research. They can inform researchers about community service organizations, and perhaps particular contacts within these organizations, that can provide information, support, and advocacy services to child subjects and their families. For example, researchers may want to be aware of the alternative housing resources in the community. If a research staff member belongs to a profession that makes her or him a mandated reporter under the state’s law, the staff person is legally required to report such cases of neglect or is considerable variation in each state’s child welfare system national clearinghouse on child abuse and neglect information reported that as of june 2003, 18 states (delaware, florida, idaho, indiana, kentucky, maryland, mississippi, nebraska, new hampshire, new jersey, new mexico, north carolina, oklahoma, puerto rico, tennessee, texas, utah, and wyoming) have universal reporting requirements; see http:///general/legal/statutes/ [may 2005]. In developing their anticipatory plans, researchers should consult with the local child protective services office to ensure that they understand applicable laws. The state or local protective services office may also be a resource in developing plans for responding to particular situations that are likely to arise in a research project.
However, even when legal obligations don’t exist, there is an ethical obligation to act in cases when the risk is imminent and serious. Researchers who conduct housing health hazards research will likely also encounter situations when they need to determine on an individual basis if the presence of physical hazards in the home present an imminent risk of serious harm and therefore warrant reporting the situation to child protective ted citation:"7 researchers' responsibilities. Example, if a researcher enters a home to conduct a vigorous clean-up of household allergens and discovers a large hole in the middle of the floor with a drop-off to the floor below, does this obvious safety risk to any child in the home fall within the definition of child abuse or neglect? If this situation falls within the scope of state law and the researcher is a mandated reporter, it must be reported to child protective services. In addition, all researchers should consider whether the parents can take steps to eliminate the hazard. Yet, many professionals may believe that reporting would have a negative effect on the trust and the alliance they have built with the research participants. In addition, some researchers believe that child protective service agencies lack the necessary resources and discretion to effectively handle a reported case (goldstein, 1999, ch. Researchers may be concerned that reporting suspicions to child protective services agencies will undermine parents’ willingness to continue participation in the study. Although the committee acknowledges these concerns, the ethical and in some cases legal obligation to act in cases of imminent and serious risk is that are not imminent and chers need to consider options for preventing harms that are not imminent and serious, and for each option, to analyze its effectiveness,Suggested citation:"7 researchers' responsibilities. Researchers need to balance the harm that is likely to be averted against the harms resulting from breaches of confidentiality. It is clearly not the researchers’ responsibility to eliminate all risks in these situations, input from parents should be part of the plan. Specific responses will have to take into account parental values because the parents will have different views about childrearing and will have to live with the consequences of researchers’ actions. Parents will often have legitimate concern that the intervention will not be as effective as expected or that the risk of unintended adverse consequences is greater than the researcher appreciates. Generally, the staff and parents can agree on an approach that both reduces risk and respects the parents’ example, a researcher might observe mold in the home. However, if more than one family is living in the unit, the parent may not want to report (or have the researcher report) the situation to the landlord for fear of eviction. Informed consent process should discuss reasonably foreseeable situations in which researchers may have to breach confidentiality to protect study subjects from imminent and serious harm (e. The discussion should be tailored to the situations that are likely to arise in the project; researchers cannot give an exhaustive list of all situations in which confidentiality might have to be researchers observe risks that they believe require them to override confidentiality, they need to discuss confidentiality again with the parents. The discussion at the time of enrollment in the study was hypothetical; after a serious risk has been identified, the researcher needs to discuss the specific situation that poses the risk, the various alternatives for preventing the risk, and the parents’ preferences on how to proceed.
Ideally, researchers and parents can agree on a course of action that resolves the risk without requiring a breach in confidentiality. If a child in the study is being abused by someone else in the household), it is ethically desirable to obtain parents’ concurrence with reporting, as well as to help the parents and child find supportive services to protect them against retaliation. Such interactions show respect for chers should train their research field staffs about what they might encounter and how to respond to risks they observe in homes, develop policies and procedures to address them, and provide necessary oversight and back-up. Research staff who visit homes will be the ones facing the dilemma of how to respond to observed risks. When unanticipated situations arise, staff should be able to contact the principal investigator or a senior investigator for guidance on how to research team should be aware of relevant available community resources to help enable them to respond in a timely, helpful manner. They should also identify specific contact people in those organizations for urgent assistance so staff can provide such information to ted citation:"7 researchers' responsibilities. Unless situations present an imminent and serious harm, staff responses need to respect parents’ are charged with protecting participants in research; hence, they need to review and approve researchers’ plan for responding to risks they observe in the home, including any anticipated situations that warrant overriding sions and committee reached several conclusions about researchers’ responsibilities. The particular context of housing health hazards research raises ethical obligations for researchers beyond those addressed in the applicable federal regulations. Community concerns related to the provision of benefit to all children enrolled in research can be addressed though the use of innovative designs. Research conducted in the home might affect third parties who are not participating in the research. In addition, researchers may observe a range of behaviors and conditions not related to the research. Researchers have an ethical obligation to thoroughly consider these issues and to inform the parents of potential child subjects of any circumstances under which the researchers anticipate they will need to breach endation 7. Researchers designing intervention studies on housing health hazards involving children should consider using innovative designs in which all child subjects receive a prospect of direct endation 7. Researchers carrying out research on housing health hazards involving children should discuss in their protocols and irb submissions their legal and ethical obligations to potential third parties affected by their endation 7. Researchers designing research on housing health hazards to children need to anticipate the risks and behaviors that may be observed in the home, including observations that are not part of the research protocol, develop anticipatory plans that specify how to ted citation:"7 researchers' responsibilities. Institutional review boards that review housing health hazards research should examine the researchers’ plans for responding to risks observed in the home and require that they be appropriate in the context of the research and the affected ted citation:"7 researchers' responsibilities. Considerations for research on housing-related health hazards involving paperback | $ members save 10% or register to save! Considerations for research on housing-related health hazards involving children explores the ethical issues posed when conducting research designed to identify, understand, or ameliorate housing-related health hazards among children.
Such research involves children as subjects and is conducted in the home and in communities. This book emphasizes five key elements to address the particular ethical concerns raised by these characteristics: involving the affected community in the research and responding to their concerns; ensuring that parents understand the essential elements of the research; adopting uniform federal guidelines for such research by all sponsors (subpart d of 45 cfr 46); providing guidance on key terms in the regulations; and viewing research oversight as a system with important roles for researchers, irbs and their research institutions, sponsors and regulators of research, and the 're looking at openbook, 's online reading room since 1999. Sign up for email notifications and we'll let you know about new publications in your areas of interest when they're l considerations for research on housing-related health hazards involving r: 7 researchers' /10766 to get more information about this book, to buy it in print, or to download it as a free pdf.
