Research in the Time of Coronavirus: Continuing Ongoing Studies in the Midst of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Saberi, Parya

doi:10.1007/s10461-020-02868-4

Cited by 69 publications

(79 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Electronic gift cards, which have become popularized in online research due to their convenience for researchers [10], are often not useful to our participants. Electronic gift cards do not permit our participants to access the resources they may need most, such as food or more immediate survival needs from vendors that require cash.…”

Section: Challenges To Reimbursing Participants From Economically Marmentioning

confidence: 99%

Research with Marginalized Communities: Challenges to Continuity During the COVID-19 Pandemic

et al. 2020

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Section: Challenges To Reimbursing Participants From Economically Marmentioning

confidence: 99%

Research with Marginalized Communities: Challenges to Continuity During the COVID-19 Pandemic

et al. 2020

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“…For example, for HIV prevention studies involving oral PrEP (whether as an experimental arm or as standard of prevention), investigators may need to closely monitor adherence to PrEP or other HIV prevention interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic, and not simply assume that participants have continued to use them for any number of reasons (e.g., availability, changed sexual behaviors). Some remote monitoring methods have been proposed, such as providing SMS photographs of pill counts and refill dates, and mailing in samples of hair that can be used to measure medication concentrations [ 22 ]. Researchers should also communicate with participants about whether to continue PrEP if they are not sexually active due to social distancing.…”

Section: Main Bodymentioning

confidence: 99%

HIV prevention research and COVID-19: putting ethics guidance to the test

et al. 2021

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Background Critical public health measures implemented to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic have disrupted health research worldwide, including HIV prevention research. While general guidance has been issued for the responsible conduct of research in these challenging circumstances, the contours of the dueling COVID-19 and HIV/AIDS pandemics raise some critical ethical issues for HIV prevention research. In this paper, we use the recently updated HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) Ethics Guidance Document (EGD) to situate and analyze key ethical challenges related to the conduct of HIV prevention research during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as identify potential areas for refinement of the guidance document based on this unprecedented state of affairs. Main body Necessary actions taken for HIV prevention research studies due to the COVID-19 pandemic involve an array of ethical issues including those related to: (1) risk mitigation; (2) behavior change; (3) compounding vulnerability; (4) community engagement; (5) trial reopening; and 6) shifting research priorities. Conclusions In the context of the dueling HIV and COVID-19 global pandemics, research teams and sponsors must be nimble in responding to the rapidly changing environment by being sensitive to the associated ethical issues. The HTPN EGD provides a rich set of tools to help identify, analyze and address many of these issues. At the same time, future refinements of the HPTN EGD and other research ethics guidance could be strengthened by providing explicit advice regarding the ethical issues associated with disrupted research and the reopening of studies. In addition, additional consideration should be given to appropriately balancing domains of risk (e.g., physical versus social), addressing the vulnerability of research staff and community partners, and responding to un-anticipatable ancillary care needs of participants and communities. Appropriately addressing these issues will necessitate conceptual work, which would benefit from the careful documentation of the actual ethical issues encountered in research, the strategies implemented to overcome them, and their success in doing so. Throughout all of these efforts, it is critical to remember that the HIV pandemic not be forgotten in the rush to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.

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“…The most common strategy seen elsewhere has been the shift to online interactions as a way to supplement or replace in-person data collection approaches such as interviews or FGDs (Saberi, 2020;Sugiura et al, 2017). Given that Mozambique is a poor-resourced country, the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs), for instance web-based survey platforms, would entail selection bias towards a minority mostly based in the larger urban centres with access to such platforms, which are proven to be useful in high income countries (Ali et al, 2020) and/or urbanised settings.…”

Section: Employment Of Remote Data Collection Approaches During the Cmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenges and needs for social behavioural research and community engagement activities during the COVID-19 pandemic in rural Mozambique

Magaço

Munguambe

Nhacolo

et al. 2020

Global Public Health

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After the Ebola outbreaks the world is again facing a challenge in which human behaviours and contact history play crucial roles in determining the trends in disease spreading within and across communities. With the onset of the recent coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, several issues related to conducting social behavioural sciences research and related community engagement activities arise, especially in rural areas of low-income countries, where the coverage of information and communication technologies (ICTs) is limited and their application on field-based research would imply a biased selection of relatively more privileged minorities with access to on-line and other communication platforms not requiring physical contact. This article enumerates and discusses the different technical challenges that social behavioural sciences research and community engagement activities face in times of public health emergencies caused by pandemics such as COVID-19. It also highlights the possibility of using alternative approaches to maintain the engagement with members of rural communities in research and social action activities, as well as the ethical challenges arising from such approaches.

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Research in the Time of Coronavirus: Continuing Ongoing Studies in the Midst of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract: Publisher's Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Cited by 69 publications

References 35 publications

Research with Marginalized Communities: Challenges to Continuity During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Research with Marginalized Communities: Challenges to Continuity During the COVID-19 Pandemic

HIV prevention research and COVID-19: putting ethics guidance to the test

Challenges and needs for social behavioural research and community engagement activities during the COVID-19 pandemic in rural Mozambique

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