title: An HIV prevention protocol reviewed at 15 national sites: how do ethics committees protect communities?
abstract: To learn whether ethics committees reviewing community-based participatory research concentrate on the protection of communities, in addition to individual participants, data from 15 sites were analyzed. Eighty-two ethics committee concerns related to consent (35%), protocol procedures (49%), data collection (17%), and HIPAA (6%) were identified. Concerns generally involved individual level subject issues; only 17% were related to community issues. To improve community-level protections in research, the authors recommend that both ethics committee members and research staff receive education concerning protection and respect for communities, that a community member group be established to advise researchers throughout the planning and implementation of community-level studies and that local ethics committee boards include members with community-level experience.
authors.affiliation: University of Maryland Medical School.
authors.forename: Bethany Griffin
authors.initials: BG
authors.lastname: Deeds
authors.forename: Marné
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Castillo
authors.forename: Zephyr
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Beason
authors.forename: Shayna D
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Cunningham
authors.forename: Jonathan M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Ellen
authors.forename: Ligia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Peralta