title: Motivations and perceptions of community advisory boards in the ethics of medical research: the case of the Thai-Myanmar border.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Community engagement is increasingly promoted as a marker of good, ethical practice in the context of international collaborative research in low-income countries. There is, however, no widely agreed definition of community engagement or of approaches adopted. Justifications given for its use also vary. Community engagement is, for example, variously seen to be of value in: the development of more effective and appropriate consent processes; improved understanding of the aims and forms of research; higher recruitment rates; the identification of important ethical issues; the building of better relationships between the community and researchers; the obtaining of community permission to approach potential research participants; and, the provision of better health care. Despite these diverse and potentially competing claims made for the importance of community engagement, there is very little published evidence on effective models of engagement or their evaluation.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this paper, drawing upon interviews with the members of a Community Advisory Board on the Thai-Myanmar border, we describe and critically reflect upon an approach to community engagement which was developed in the context of international collaborative research in the border region.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Drawing on our analysis, we identify a number of considerations relevant to the development of an approach to evaluating community engagement in this complex research setting. The paper also identifies a range of important ways in which the Community Advisory Board is in practice understood by its members (and perhaps by community members beyond this) to have morally significant roles and responsibilities beyond those usually associated with the successful and appropriate conduct of research.
authors.forename: Khin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Maung Lwin
authors.forename: Phaik Yeong
authors.initials: PY
authors.lastname: Cheah
authors.forename: Phaik Kin
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Cheah
authors.forename: Nicholas J
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: White
authors.forename: Nicholas P J
authors.initials: NP
authors.lastname: Day
authors.forename: Francois
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Nosten
authors.affiliation: The Ethox Centre, Department of Public Health, University of Oxford, Oxford, England, UK. michael.parker@ethox.ox.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Parker
mesh_terms: D026683:Advisory Committees / Q000941:ethics; D001294:Attitude to Health; D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000941:ethics; D003159:Community-Institutional Relations; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D028744:Ethics Committees, Research; D032984:Ethics, Research; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007258:Informed Consent / Q000941:ethics; D008297:Male; D028681:Moral Obligations; D009042:Motivation; D002052:Myanmar / Q000453:epidemiology; D012107:Research Design; D012108:Research Personnel / Q000941:ethics; D012938:Social Perception; D013785:Thailand / Q000453:epidemiology