Law & Order: Research Ethics Unit
What infamous U.S. study on syphilis is often cited as a reason why research ethics and informed consent became central to clinical research?
What is the Tuskegee Syphilis Study.
This study design is considered the “gold standard” of clinical research.
What is a randomized controlled trial (RCT)?
This acronym stands for the committee that ensures human research is conducted ethically.
What is the Institutional Review Board (IRB)?
Interviews, focus groups, and ethnographic observation are examples of these research methods.
What are qualitative methods?
This section of a research article summarizes the study and helps readers decide if it’s relevant.
What is an abstract?
This process protects participants by ensuring they understand risks, benefits, alternatives, and that their participation is voluntary.
What is informed consent?
These types of studies are strong for studying real-world exposures but weak in establishing causality.
What are observational studies?
Even small financial incentives can raise concerns about this ethical issue.
What is undue influence or coercion?
Compared to quantitative research, this is one strength of qualitative research.
What is capturing lived experiences and context?
Partnering with local clinics and community organizations to improve enrollment is an example of this type of recruitment strategy.
What is community-based recruitment?
Low health literacy, language barriers, and cultural norms are examples of modern challenges in achieving this aspect of informed consent.
What is ensuring consent is truly informed?
To test a new diabetes drug, this type of design would allow random assignment to drug versus placebo.
What is a randomized controlled trial (RCT)?
When including minors (16–17 years old), the IRB must carefully consider whether this is required.
What is parental consent?
Self-report bias and lack of generalizability are examples of this type of limitation in qualitative research.
What are weaknesses of qualitative methods?
In scientific writing, this is the most common flaw in abstracts that makes them difficult for general readers to understand.
What is overuse of jargon?
In international trials, family or community leaders may need to approve a participant’s involvement, limiting this ethical principle.
What is individual autonomy?
This is the main difference between a cohort study and a case-control study.
What is following groups forward in time versus starting with outcomes and looking back at exposures?
If confidentiality is breached in a sexual health study, participants may face these kinds of harms.
What are stigma, discrimination, or psychological/social harms?
Triangulation, member checking, and reflexivity are strategies to ensure this in qualitative research.
What is rigor and credibility?
This document, produced in the 1970s, outlines the principles of respect for persons, beneficence, and justice.
What is the Belmont Report?
The Belmont Report introduced this key principle — alongside respect for persons and beneficence — that was not explicitly emphasized in the Nuremberg Code.
What is justice?
When studying a rare disease, this type of study is more efficient and feasible than an RCT.
What is a case-control study?
Using anonymous surveys, enhancing data security, or adjusting incentives are examples of strategies to reduce this while maintaining scientific value.
What is participant risk?
Combining viral load data with patient interview findings is an example of this approach.
What is mixed-methods research (integrating qualitative and quantitative)?
This type of study design follows patients forward in time and is especially useful for studying incidence.
What is a cohort study?