TY - JOUR
T1 - Conducting health-related social science research in low income settings
T2 - ethical dilemmas faced in Kenya and South Africa
AU - Molyneux, Catherine
AU - Goudge, Jane
AU - Russell, Steve
AU - Chuma, Jane
AU - Gumede, Tebogo
AU - Gilson, Lucy
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - The value of the social sciences is increasingly recognised in health services and clinical research, contributing to an increasing number of multi-disciplinary, multi-method studies. Such studies offer numerous advantages, but also pose particular challenges, including different approaches to or foci in research ethics across disciplines. Drawing on two similar studies conducted in coastal Kenya and in rural South Africa, we share the ethical challenges we faced in relation to several key principles, the responses we adopted, and the new dilemmas that resulted from our actions. Given that multi-disciplinary, multi-method studies are often reviewed by committees with greater familiarity with biomedical than social science research, we conclude by drawing on our experiences, and the wider literature and guidelines around conducting social science research, to make suggestions of additional considerations for social science elements of multi-disciplinary research.We also emphasise that in practice it is the social relationships that are established between researchers and field-teams, and between field-teams and community members, that are critical to fulfilling the moral (as opposed to the legal) aspects of ethics guidelines. These essential elements of ethical practice, and of producing quality data, are not easily tested and checked by ethics committees. Rather they are linked to the insight and integrity of the principle investigators and their research teams.
AB - The value of the social sciences is increasingly recognised in health services and clinical research, contributing to an increasing number of multi-disciplinary, multi-method studies. Such studies offer numerous advantages, but also pose particular challenges, including different approaches to or foci in research ethics across disciplines. Drawing on two similar studies conducted in coastal Kenya and in rural South Africa, we share the ethical challenges we faced in relation to several key principles, the responses we adopted, and the new dilemmas that resulted from our actions. Given that multi-disciplinary, multi-method studies are often reviewed by committees with greater familiarity with biomedical than social science research, we conclude by drawing on our experiences, and the wider literature and guidelines around conducting social science research, to make suggestions of additional considerations for social science elements of multi-disciplinary research.We also emphasise that in practice it is the social relationships that are established between researchers and field-teams, and between field-teams and community members, that are critical to fulfilling the moral (as opposed to the legal) aspects of ethics guidelines. These essential elements of ethical practice, and of producing quality data, are not easily tested and checked by ethics committees. Rather they are linked to the insight and integrity of the principle investigators and their research teams.
KW - Developing countries
KW - Ethics
KW - Health research
KW - Qualitative methods
KW - Social science
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=67649382079&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1002/jid.1548
DO - 10.1002/jid.1548
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:67649382079
SN - 0954-1748
VL - 21
SP - 309
EP - 326
JO - Journal of International Development
JF - Journal of International Development
IS - 2
ER -