The Ebola 100 Project: A Flexible Approach to Collaborative Research

Abstract

Abstract In order to collaborate on human subjects research, social scientists require flexible approaches that allow them to adhere to legal and ethical protections specific to their community or profession. Such flexibility is illustrated in the Ebola 100 Project (2018), a “voluntary, collaborative, multi-institutional, and international” anthropological research project that captured lessons learned about organizational responses to the West Africa Ebola outbreak of 2014–2015. The inclusive project comprised almost a dozen investigators from government and non-government organizations from several different countries. A few of the project's United States contributors worked as part of the Translational Research Group, a research facility housed under the Marine Corps culture center. These researchers had access to potential participants in the military and experience conducting qualitative research in compliance with Department of Defense human subjects protection regulations. One outcome of the inclusive and flexible design of the Ebola 100 Project is that it allows for participation from relatively under-represented populations in traditional anthropological research, such as United States military personnel. Upon completion of the Ebola 100 Project, researchers interested in analyzing the experiences and stories of individuals who responded to a global health emergency can access more than 100 interviews.