On establishing culturally relevant ethical standards in community-engaged research

Ethical principles guiding traditional research aim to protect the rights and well-being of individual subjects. Community-engaged research, however, also considers the rights and well-being of community researchers and the community at large, which requires additional ethical considerations that have been extensively discussed but not analyzed systematically. Based on a comprehensive thematic literature review of ethics in community-partnered research and interviews with academic and community partners involved in community-engaged studies, we present an alternative ethical frame, which includes unique risks and ethical guidelines deemed essential by both academic and community partners. Academic researcher partners balance the goals of improving cultural capacity-building, building partnerships with community, adequately respecting community beliefs, and conducting research that benefits community with the goals of accomplishing research aims on time and ensuring the project's scientific validity. Our findings also indicate the importance of additional ethical principles, such as mutual understanding, cooperation, and respect between academic and community partners, suggesting that the process of building cultural competence is bi-directional and requires trust and ongoing negotiation. Academic and community partners are concerned with the direct and short-term risks/benefits of research, as well as with indirect and long-term risks/benefits to the partners and community. The processes that result in ethical partnered research may not be monitored or evaluated by academic institutional review boards, which further reinforces the need to build trustworthy relationships between academic and community research partners. We discuss implications for building and maintaining culturally competent research partnerships with communities.