Ethical Considerations About Health Research

The Four Themes of CIHR Funded Health Research

Research funded by CIHR is organized under four themes^{Footnote 1} : Biomedical; Clinical; Health Services; and Social, Cultural, Environmental, and Population Health Research. This section provides a description of each theme as well as examples of common ethical issues that may arise under each theme. The examples given below are not exclusive to any particular theme, nor is the list of examples exhaustive.

Research is not an activity that is isolated from society. A wide range of stakeholders influence the lifecycle of knowledge creation and application including funders, students, patients, industry, and policy-makers. As illustrated in the examples below, an ethical analysis should encompass the interests and participation of society as a whole in the research endeavour.

• Some common ethical considerations that users of this Workbook should be aware of under this theme relate to:
  • Access to, and the allocation of, scarce resources such as databanks or expensive equipment required to conduct research;
  • Factors that may inappropriately influence the framing of research questions and the conduct of researchers such as personal gain and other conflicts of interest;
  • Factors influencing the reporting of research findings.

• Some common ethical considerations that users of this Workbook should be aware of under this theme are:
  • The ways in which the funding source may influence the researcher, the research agenda and the interpretations of the results of the research;
  • Appropriate research design and modeling particularly when non-human participants are going to be used;
  • Equal access to research participation and the equitable distribution of research benefits to human participants.

• Some common ethical considerations that users of this Workbook should be aware of under this theme involve:
  • Assessing complex ethical trade-offs when analyzing the economic efficiency of the health care system or other services;
  • Determining the best interests of diverse communities and the best way to serve the needs of these communities.

• Some common ethical considerations that users of this Workbook should be aware of under this theme involve:
  • Reflecting on the unique harms and benefits that may arise when conducting research with groups in situation of vulnerability;
  • Weighing the best interests of groups or populations against the rights of individuals when conducting public health research.

Multi-thematic and Multidisciplinary Knowledge Creation to Action Activities

While classifying CIHR-funded research under four pillars serves a number of organizational purposes – as with any classification, the method is somewhat artificial. Health research has led the way in multidisciplinary approaches but the reality is that nearly all publicly-funded scientific endeavours today are multidisciplinary. The reasons for this are because publicly-funded research is problem-driven, and the nature of science itself has changed with the move from positivist linear explanations to complex systems-based research and explanatory models. The multidisciplinary approach (with relative definitions of the term) is no longer just optional. It is de rigueur. Also, the agents creating knowledge are not always conventionally described as researchers. Students and public servants, for example, frequently conduct KTA activities that should be evaluated through an ethical lens.

Additional ethical considerations that could be common to all research include:

• The frame of the project, constituted by :
  • the research agenda and who shapes it;
  • the presumed standards of acceptable evidence prompting to action;
  • the intended consequences of the research (impact), and
  • the unintended consequences of the research (repercussions)
• Unforeseen biases;
• Real or perceived conflicts of interest;
• Appropriate design and conduct of the research activity;
• Appropriateness and integrity of the knowledge translation-related activities.

Date modified:

2018-03-28