Ethical Goals of Community Consultation in Research
Neal Dickert, BA and
Jeremy Sugarman, MD, MPH, MA
The authors are with the Phoebe R. Berman Bioethics Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. Jeremy Sugarman also is with the Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University.
Correspondence: Request for reprints should be sent to Jeremy Sugarman, MD, MPH, MA, Phoebe R. Berman Bioethics Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Hampton House 351, 624 N Broadway, Baltimore, MD 21205 (e-mail: jsugarm1{at}jhmi.edu).
In response to the traditional emphasis on the rights, interests,and well-being of individual research subjects, there has beengrowing attention focused on the importance of involving communitiesin research development and approval.
Community consultation is a particularly common method of involvingcommunities. However, the fundamental ethical goals of communityconsultation have not been delineated, which makes it difficultfor investigators, sponsors, and institutional review boardsto design and evaluate consultation efforts.
Community consultation must be tailored to the communities inwhich it is conducted, but the purposes of consultationtheethical goals it is designed to achieveshould be universal.We propose 4 ethical goals that give investigators, sponsors,institutional review boards, and communities a framework forevaluating community consultation processes.
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