Protecting Participants and Facilitating Social and Behavioral Sciences Research

Abstract

Institutional review boards (IRBs) are the linchpins of the protection systems that govern human participation research. In recent years, high-profile cases have focused attention on the weaknesses of the procedures protecting participants medical research. The issues surrounding participants protection the social, behavioral, and economic sciences may be less visible to the public eye, but they are no less important ensuring ethical and responsible research. This report examines three key issues related to human participation social, behavioral, and economic sciences research: (1) obtaining informed, voluntary consent from prospective participants: (2) guaranteeing the confidentiality of information collected from participants, which is a particularly challenging problem social sciences research; and (3) using appropriate review procedures a /minimal-riska research. Protecting Participants and Facilitating Social and Behavioral Sciences Research will be important to policy makers, research administrators, research sponsors, IRB members, and investigators. More generally, it contains important information all who want to ensure the best protectiona for participants and researchers alikea in the social, behavioral, and economic sciences.