title: Ethics and Scientific Integrity in Public Health, Epidemiological and Clinical Research.
abstract: The ethics and scientific integrity of biomedical and public health research requires that researchers behave in appropriate ways. However, this requires more than following of published research guidelines that seek to prevent scientific misconduct relating to serious deviations from widely accepted scientific norms for proposing, conducting, and reporting research (e.g., fabrication or falsification of research data or failures to report potential conflicts of interest). In this paper we argue for a broader account of scientific integrity, one consistent with that defended by the United States Institute of Medicine, involving a commitment to intellectual honesty and personal responsibility for one's actions as a researcher and to practices consistent with the responsible conduct of research and protection of the research participants. Maintaining high standards of ethical and scientific integrity helps to maintain public trust in the research enterprise. An increasing number of authors have pointed to the importance of mentoring and education in relation to the responsible conduct of science in preventing transgressions of scientific integrity. Just like in clinical research and biomedicine, epidemiologists and other public health researchers have the responsibility to exhibit and foster the very highest standards of scientific integrity.
authors.affiliation: 2440 16 Street, NW, Washington, DC, USA.
authors.forename: Steven S
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Coughlin
authors.affiliation: Research Service, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Washington, DC, USA ; Food and Drug Administration, Rockville, MD, USA.
authors.forename: Amyre
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Barker
authors.affiliation: Medicine, Ethics, Society and History, School of Health and Population Sciences, College of Medical and Dental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.
authors.forename: Angus
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dawson
keywords: Ethics; clinical research; epidemiology; plagiarism; public health; scientific integrity; scientific misconduct