Remunerating Researchers from the Global South: A Source of Academic Prostitution? While researchers from the Global North are granted a guaranteed salary, risk funds, and various forms of insurance, the same cannot be said for research assistants. The remunerative discrepancy between these two groups is a form of discrimination. It creates an imbalance between researchers […]
Primary data collection in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) is associated with a range of ethical complexities. Considerations on how to adequately ensure the well-being of research staff are largely neglected in contemporary ethics discourse. This systematic review aims to identify the ethical challenges that research staff across different hierarchical levels and scientific disciplines face […]
Several foundational documents of bioethics mention the special obligation researchers have to vulnerable research participants. However, the treatment of vulnerability offered by these documents often relies on enumeration of vulnerable groups rather than an analysis of the features that make such groups vulnerable. Recent attempts in the scholarly literature to lend philosophical weight to the […]
Concern for human vulnerability seems to be at the heart of bioethical inquiry, but the concept of vulnerability is under-theorized in the bioethical literature. The aim of this article is to show why bioethics needs an adequately theorized and nuanced conception of vulnerability. We first review approaches to vulnerability in research ethics and public health […]
This paper is based on the experiences drawn from a long-term social science research programme on the impact of the AIDS pandemic on orphanhood in western Kenya. It discusses the ethical dilemma of maintaining a delicate balance between research ethics, the expectations of the study population and negotiating the community’s vested interests in a health-related research project […]
Community engagement, incorporating elements of the broader concepts of public and stakeholder engagement, is increasingly promoted globally, including for health research conducted in developing countries. In sub-Saharan Africa, community engagement needs and challenges are arguably intensified for studies involving gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men, where male same-sex sexual interactions are […]
There is a growing literature documenting the complex realities of consent processes in the field, and the negotiations and ethical dilemmas involved. Much has also been written about how gender and power shape household decision-making processes. However, these bodies of literature have rarely been brought together to inform research theory and practice in low-income settings. […]
Benefit sharing in health research has been the focus of international debates for many years, particularly in developing countries. Whilst increasing attention is being given to frameworks that can guide researchers to determine levels of benefits to participants, there is little empirical research from developing countries on the practical application of these frameworks, including in […]
Data fabrication, incorrect collection strategies and poor data management, are considered detrimental to high-quality scientific research. While poor data management have been occasionally excused, fabrication constitutes a cardinal sin and scientific misconduct. Scholarly examinations of fabrication usually seek to expose and capture its prevalence and, less frequently, its consequences and causes. Most accounts centre on […]
While considerable attention has been focused on understanding the myriad of ethical analysis in international research in low- and middle-income countries, new issues always arise that have not been anticipated in guidelines or studied extensively. The disruption of medical care arising as a direct result of political actions, including strikes, post-election violence and related activities, […]