245923 Role of Community Consultation in the Research Process

Tuesday, November 1, 2011: 10:30 AM

Sean Philpott, PhD, MSBioethics , The Bioethics Program, Union Graduate College, Schenectady, NY
For community-based research projects, community consultation is an important way of involving community representatives and stakeholders in the design, review, conduct and oversight of the research project. Such a consultative process is necessary to build and maintain public trust in research, inform researchers about the values and norms of the community they wish to study, and contribute to more effective recruitment and retention of participants (particularly among marginalized or underrepresented communities). Failure to engage effectively with community representatives can put a project at risk, both scientifically and legally, as the recent scandal involving the Havasupai in Arizona demonstrates. In this paper, using examples of community consultation processes for genetic and Emergency Room research, we will describe different models of community consultation, discuss best practices, and highlight some of the challenges and pitfalls that researchers may face.

Learning Areas:
Ethics, professional and legal requirements
Public health or related research
Social and behavioral sciences

Learning Objectives:
At the end of the presentation, participants will be able to: 1) Describe the community consultation process; 2) Compare different community consultation models; and 3) Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of different consultation models for specific community-based research projects.

Keywords: Community Participation, Ethics

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am a public health researcher and Professor of Bioethics, who has been engaged in community-based research projects for over 15 years. I am an expert in community consultation and have published several papers and given many presentations and workshops on community involvement in the research process.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.