Post-Research Ethics Analysis in Humanitarian Crises (PREA)

What did the study set out to achieve?

To gather empirical data to address questions about coherence between anticipated research ethics issues when humanitarian health research is planned/ethically reviewed compared to ethical issues experienced when research is conducted. A coherent strategy for post-research ethics analysis (PREA) is lacking and needed to facilitate debriefing of those involved to promote learning-from-experience. To develop a tool for PREA, we will gather data on researchers’/ethics review committees’ (ERC)/stakeholders’ experiences of ethical challenges in research implementation. The goal was for findings to become part of an open internet platform to facilitate learning and sharing, to help promote good ethical practice/develop ethics-training materials for humanitarian research.

Visit the Project Website for more information and outputs: www.preaportal.org.

What were the key findings?

The systematic review found over 700 documents in academic and non-academic sources that addressed ethical issues in humanitarian health research. The analysis of this literature identified 13 main themes, each with numerous sub-themes. The analysis of interviews in the four countries identified 10 main themes, again with multiple sub-themes.

Figure 1 below shows the main themes and clear areas of overlap between the two analyses. However, much more overlap occurred than the figure suggests because the literature tended to focus on specific issues, while the interviews focused on practicalities.

Participants also provided many useful ideas about ways to address and improve how ethics is addressed in humanitarian research.

What does this mean for policymakers and practitioners?

• Ethics in humanitarian health research involves many more ethical issues than those that come up during the ethics approval process. Some of these ethical issues leave researchers distressed and questioning their involvement in research.
• Humanitarian researchers need and want training and support for the ethical challenges they face at all stages of research and evidence generation. This could be addressed through further attention to the development of ethics tools, training and guidance materials.
• Policies should encourage attention to and training in ethical decision-making skills so that researchers are better prepared to address ethics and ethical issues in their projects.
• Commissioners and funders of research should promote research that holds to the highest ethical standards, thereby respecting participant communities, researchers, and others. This will also help projects run efficiently and effectively by avoiding delays due to ethical challenges.