A Field Training Guide for Human Subjects Research Ethics

Summary Points

* Community trials of interventions to address major global causes of illness and death are often located in low-resource settings, where research findings will be most directly applicable.
* Although investigators delegate research activities involving human subject contact to local field workers, they retain ultimate responsibility for human subject protection and scientific integrity.
* To train every cadre of field worker in research ethics requires simplified training guidelines that can be easily translated and adapted for use in a wide variety of settings and cultural frameworks, especially where field workers have limited formal education.
* Field workers need appropriate training materials, tailored to varying levels of human subject responsibility, that focus on basic principles of community research.
* We have produced a Field Training Guide for Human Subjects Research Ethics, which is freely available to the public. In this article we address how to identify field training needs and meet high standards of research ethics at every level of human subject interaction.

Source: A Field Training Guide for Human Subjects Research Ethics. PLoS Med 7(10): e1000349. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000349

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