Abstract
Central to ethical debates in contemporary mental health research are the rhetoric of parity of esteem, challenges underpinned by the social construct of vulnerability and the tendency to homogenise the population diagnosed with mental health conditions. Such ethical dimensions are further complicated by the contemporary endeavour to work with ‘big data’ which has led to ambitious claims for discovery and knowledge. Research in mental health is challenging due to the perceived constraints of ethical principles such as the protection of autonomy, consent, risk and harms. This article discusses how ethical considerations need to be reconceptualised when using big data sets. The argument is foregrounded with an appraisal of the prevailing political discourse of parity of esteem demonstrating that ongoing disparities in services and research should also be considered when inquiry uses big data.
Highlights
Central to ethical debates in contemporary mental health research are the rhetoric of parity of esteem, challenges underpinned by the social construct of vulnerability, and the tendency to homogenise the population diagnosed with mental health conditions
Factors such as the challenges presented by the social construct of vulnerability, issues of capacity to consent and the tendency to homogenise the population diagnosed with mental health conditions create a challenging epistemological backdrop to inquiry
We argue that it is problematic to treat a group, such as those with mental health conditions as homogenous, and to make sweeping conceptualisations of whole groups just because they loosely share the characteristics of a ‘mental health condition’ is an inadequate solution for the ethical dilemmas based in research
Summary
Big data and research ethics : parity of esteem in mental health research from a UK perspective Morton, JW and O'Reilly, M Article This version is available at: http://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/51947/ 2019. USIR is a digital collection of the research output of the University of Salford. Full text material held in the repository is made freely available online and can be read, downloaded and copied for non-commercial private study or research purposes. Please check the manuscript for any further copyright restrictions
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