Conducting epigenetics research with refugees and asylum seekers: attending to the ethical challenges

Abstract

An increase in global violence has forced the displacement of more than 70 million people, including 26 million refugees and 3.5 asylum seekers. Refugees and asylum seekers face serious socioeconomic and healthcare barriers and are therefore particularly vulnerable to physical and mental health risks, which are sometimes exacerbated by immigration policies and local social discriminations. Calls for a strong evidence base for humanitarian action have encouraged conducting research to address the barriers and needs of refugees and asylum seekers. Given the role of epigenetics factors to mediate the effect of psychological and environmental exposures, epigenetic modifications have been used as biomarkers for life adversity and disease states. Therefore, epigenetic research can be potentially beneficial to address some of the issues associated with refugees and asylum seekers. Here, we review the value of previous and ongoing epigenetic studies with traumatized populations, explore some of the ethical challenges associated with epigenetic research with refugees and asylees and offer suggestions to address or mitigate some of these challenges. Researchers have an ethical responsibility to implement strategies to minimize the harms and maximize the short and long-term benefits to refugee and asylee participants.

No association between war-related trauma or PTSD symptom severity and epigenome-wide DNA methylation in Burundian refugees

“…To conclude, understanding psychological and biological underpinnings of behavioural vulnerability and resilience to traumatic stress is a public health priority, as it could facilitate the development of preventive strategies and therapeutic interventions for trauma-related disorders, including PTSD (Nemeroff et al, 2006 ; Taki & de Melo-Martin, 2021 ). Future large-scale EWAS with underrepresented conflict-affected African populations are needed for a better understanding on effects of war-related trauma and PTSD on DNAm in African individuals.…”

Construction of a Review About Epigenetics for Biology Teachers and Other Non-experts

“…Due to it being fundamental for cellular processes, our increased understanding of these aspects leads to big consequences for a range of fields. Epigenetics' importance stretches from different fields such as medicine (e.g., , psychology (e.g., Xu et al, 2020), and pedagogy (e.g., Pickersgill, 2020), to ethics (e.g., Taki & de Melo-Martin, 2021) and law (e.g., Dupras et al, 2019), although the knowledge base is not as firmly established for the last three compared to for medicine and psychology. This universal importance is why some biologists talk about a paradigm shift (Gilbert & Epel, 2009).…”

Researcher perspectives on ethics considerations in epigenetics: an international survey

“…At the same time, ethical, legal and social issues (ELSI) have been identified, ranging from concerns about the protection of privacy of epigenetic research participants [13][14][15], to risks of discrimination based on individual epigenetic information [16]. ELSI may arise in the conduct of epigenetic research, where researchers may wonder which research results or incidental findings should be considered medically relevant and disclosed to study participants [17].…”