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 […]
Over the past few decades, there has been increasing attention focused on the ethics of health research, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Despite the increasing focus on the literature addressing human protection, community engagement, appropriate consent procedures and ways to mitigate concerns around exploitation, there has been little discussion about how the duration of […]
The Fourth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research was themed around ‘Resilient and responsive health systems for a changing world.’ This commentary is the outcome of a panel discussion at the symposium in which the resilience discourse and its use in health systems development was critically interrogated. The 2014–15 Ebola outbreak in West-Africa added momentum for […]
The purpose of the methods reader is to inform, motivate and strengthen the practice of participatory action research. It is organized in five parts and seeks to explain: Key features of participatory action research and the history and knowledge paradigms that inform it; Processes and methods used in participatory action research, including innovations and developments […]
Pratt B., Ali J. and Hyder A.A. (2016) If Research Is a Pillar of Health System Development, Why Only Focus on Clinical Trials? The American Journal of Bioethics Vol. 16, Iss. 6, 2016 The authors note that a small amount of bioethics literature supports linking health research to health system development as a matter of justice. They suggest […]
This blog summarises a set of discussions on vulnerability, agency and resilience in a meeting organised by REACH it is framed around the paradox that: on the one hand research can be powerful tool for social justice in ensuring that interventions are evidence based; but on the other, there is need to protect ‘the vulnerable’ […]
The practice of community based participatory research (CBPR) has evolved over the past 20 years with the recognition that health equity is best achieved when academic researchers form collaborative partnerships with communities. This article theorizes the possibility that core principles of CBPR cannot be realistically applied unless unequal power relations are identified and addressed. It […]
Sharing individual-level data from clinical and public health research is increasingly being seen as a core requirement for effective and efficient biomedical research. This article discusses the results of a systematic review and multisite qualitative study of key stakeholders’ perspectives on best practices in ethical data sharing in low- and middle-income settings. Our research suggests […]
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. […]
This editorial identifies three areas of ethical tension in health systems research: 1) the dominance of global targets in priority setting which may crowd out health systems research that is responsive to local needs in favour of research on service delivery and scale up of interventions geared to support the achievement of global goals like […]