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What makes public health studies ethical? Dissolving the boundary between research and practice

BACKGROUND: The generation of evidence is integral to the work of public health and health service providers. Traditionally, ethics has been addressed differently in research projects, compared with other forms of evidence generation, such as quality improvement, program evaluation, and surveillance...

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Autores principales: Willison, Donald J, Ondrusek, Nancy, Dawson, Angus, Emerson, Claudia, Ferris, Lorraine E, Saginur, Raphael, Sampson, Heather, Upshur, Ross
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4133954/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25104180
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6939-15-61
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author Willison, Donald J
Ondrusek, Nancy
Dawson, Angus
Emerson, Claudia
Ferris, Lorraine E
Saginur, Raphael
Sampson, Heather
Upshur, Ross
author_facet Willison, Donald J
Ondrusek, Nancy
Dawson, Angus
Emerson, Claudia
Ferris, Lorraine E
Saginur, Raphael
Sampson, Heather
Upshur, Ross
author_sort Willison, Donald J
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The generation of evidence is integral to the work of public health and health service providers. Traditionally, ethics has been addressed differently in research projects, compared with other forms of evidence generation, such as quality improvement, program evaluation, and surveillance, with review of non-research activities falling outside the purview of the research ethics board. However, the boundaries between research and these other evaluative activities are not distinct. Efforts to delineate a boundary – whether on grounds of primary purpose, temporality, underlying legal authority, departure from usual practice, or direct benefits to participants – have been unsatisfactory. Public Health Ontario has eschewed this distinction between research and other evaluative activities, choosing to adopt a common framework and process to guide ethical reflection on all public health evaluative projects throughout their lifecycle – from initial planning through to knowledge exchange. DISCUSSION: The Public Health Ontario framework was developed by a working group of public health and ethics professionals and scholars, in consultation with individuals representing a wide range of public health roles. The first part of the framework interprets the existing Canadian research ethics policy statement (commonly known as the TCPS 2) through a public health lens. The second part consists of ten questions that guide the investigator in the application of the core ethical principles to public health initiatives. The framework is intended for use by those designing and executing public health evaluations, as well as those charged with ethics review of projects. The goal is to move toward a culture of ethical integrity among investigators, reviewers and decision-makers, rather than mere compliance with rules. The framework is consonant with the perspective of the learning organization and is generalizable to other public health organizations, to health services organizations, and beyond. SUMMARY: Public Health Ontario has developed an ethics framework that is applicable to any evidence-generating activity, regardless of whether it is labelled research. While developed in a public health context, it is readily adaptable to other health services organizations and beyond.
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spelling pubmed-41339542014-08-16 What makes public health studies ethical? Dissolving the boundary between research and practice Willison, Donald J Ondrusek, Nancy Dawson, Angus Emerson, Claudia Ferris, Lorraine E Saginur, Raphael Sampson, Heather Upshur, Ross BMC Med Ethics Debate BACKGROUND: The generation of evidence is integral to the work of public health and health service providers. Traditionally, ethics has been addressed differently in research projects, compared with other forms of evidence generation, such as quality improvement, program evaluation, and surveillance, with review of non-research activities falling outside the purview of the research ethics board. However, the boundaries between research and these other evaluative activities are not distinct. Efforts to delineate a boundary – whether on grounds of primary purpose, temporality, underlying legal authority, departure from usual practice, or direct benefits to participants – have been unsatisfactory. Public Health Ontario has eschewed this distinction between research and other evaluative activities, choosing to adopt a common framework and process to guide ethical reflection on all public health evaluative projects throughout their lifecycle – from initial planning through to knowledge exchange. DISCUSSION: The Public Health Ontario framework was developed by a working group of public health and ethics professionals and scholars, in consultation with individuals representing a wide range of public health roles. The first part of the framework interprets the existing Canadian research ethics policy statement (commonly known as the TCPS 2) through a public health lens. The second part consists of ten questions that guide the investigator in the application of the core ethical principles to public health initiatives. The framework is intended for use by those designing and executing public health evaluations, as well as those charged with ethics review of projects. The goal is to move toward a culture of ethical integrity among investigators, reviewers and decision-makers, rather than mere compliance with rules. The framework is consonant with the perspective of the learning organization and is generalizable to other public health organizations, to health services organizations, and beyond. SUMMARY: Public Health Ontario has developed an ethics framework that is applicable to any evidence-generating activity, regardless of whether it is labelled research. While developed in a public health context, it is readily adaptable to other health services organizations and beyond. BioMed Central 2014-08-08 /pmc/articles/PMC4133954/ /pubmed/25104180 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6939-15-61 Text en Copyright © 2014 Willison et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Debate
Willison, Donald J
Ondrusek, Nancy
Dawson, Angus
Emerson, Claudia
Ferris, Lorraine E
Saginur, Raphael
Sampson, Heather
Upshur, Ross
What makes public health studies ethical? Dissolving the boundary between research and practice
title What makes public health studies ethical? Dissolving the boundary between research and practice
title_full What makes public health studies ethical? Dissolving the boundary between research and practice
title_fullStr What makes public health studies ethical? Dissolving the boundary between research and practice
title_full_unstemmed What makes public health studies ethical? Dissolving the boundary between research and practice
title_short What makes public health studies ethical? Dissolving the boundary between research and practice
title_sort what makes public health studies ethical? dissolving the boundary between research and practice
topic Debate
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4133954/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25104180
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6939-15-61
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