By
Dr Gary Allen| Senior Policy Officer, Office for Research Griffith University | Ambassador Council the Hopkins Centre|
Ambassador MS Qld | Member Labor Enabled| Senior Consultant AHRECS
Associate Professor Carolyn Ehrlich| the Hopkins Centre| Research fellow at Griffith University
On behalf of the consumer inclusion in ethics research project, The Hopkins Centre, Griffith University
Much has already been said about the significance of the 2018 update to the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research. The Australian Code describes the national framework for the responsible conception, design, conduct, governance and reporting of research. Collectively this is referred to as research integrity. The Australian Code has changed from a 37-page book of detailed and prescriptive rules to a six-page book of high-level principles and responsibilities.
This is not another piece arguing the pros and cons of the flexibility of principles or the certainty of a single national standard.
Instead, this is a discussion about an important idea, which was present in the 2007 version of the Australian Code, but that was discarded without explanation or acknowledgement in the 2018 update. This important idea relates to consumer and community participation and its extension to consumer and community involvement in research.
At provision 1.13 of the 2007 version of the Australian Code there was a simple statement that Australian research institutions and researchers should encourage and facilitate consumer and community participation in research. The provision was included in the 2007 version as one part of the implementation of the Statement on Consumer and Community Participation in Health and Medical Research (NHMRC and Consumers’ Health Forum of Australia Inc, 2002) and went on to underpin the updated version of that statement, which was released in September 2016. The absence from the 2018 version of the Australian Code of even a brief reference to consumer/community participation in research is (or SHOULD be) a significant cause for concern.
That brief encouragement provided support for consumer-guided designs, research participants as co-researchers and action research across most disciplines. With a few sentences, it mainstreamed the Statement on Consumer and Community Participation in Health and Medical Research and reinforced the importance of consumers and communities beyond ‘just’ research subjects in medical research.
Examples of that participation include the role of consumers and community members:
- On a reference/advisory group (including providing lived-experience with regard to the focus, objectives and deliverables of a project)
- As co-researchers
- In providing lived-experience into the significance of risks, harms and burdens, and the degree to which the risks are justified by the anticipated benefits (see Pär Segerdah 2019).
- In providing valuable insights for service/clinical decisions (see Carlini 2019 for an example).
A real example of this working well is of Cancer Australia which mandates the inclusion of consumers in their funding scheme, both in terms of applicants articulating how consumers are engaged (in the ways outlined above and also as reviewers and members of the review panels that evaluate grants). The inclusion of consumers improves projects immeasurably. Cooperative cancer trials groups have a consumer advisory panel or committee. It would be unimaginable to do cancer trials without consumer involvement in their design. Such community participation is also evident in the recently approved research strategy at Epworth Health.
The above matters (such as whether a project is addressing a genuine community need and whether the risks of the project are justified by its benefits) can be especially significant for vulnerable individuals, especially persons living with ‘invisible conditions’, whereby people may have symptoms or disabilities that might not be immediately obvious to others, and/or when the ‘subjects’ of research are vulnerable, over-researched, or historically disenfranchised. Rather than protecting them from harm, and without a clear mandate for involving them more fully in the co-design and co-production of research that directly impacts their lives, there is a real risk of unintended consequences whereby these people may become even more disenfranchised, over-researched and vulnerable research ‘subjects’.
It is important to acknowledge that the 2016 Statement remains in place, the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2007 updated 2018) continues to articulate the core values of justice and respect, and the new Chapter 3.1 of the 2018 update of the National Statement on Ethical Conductmentions co-researcher designs. More specifically, paragraphs 1.1(a) and 2.1.5 identify community engagement as an important element in research design and planning. The omission from the Australian Code (2018) is out of step with the National Safety and Quality Health Service Standard which calls (2012 p15) for consumer and community involvement in deliberations about risk.
What is a concern now is that the overarching Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research no longer urges publicly-funded research institutions to encourage consumer and community participation in research beyond them being the subjects of research. On balance, this appears to be inconsistent with other relevant national research standards issued by the same agencies as the Code.
Those voices and perspectives were around before the 2007 version of the Australian Code and hopefully, they will continue to be into the future. That is true because it is becoming more widely accepted that consumers, such as people living with a chronic disease or disability and their carers, have a valuable perspective and a voice that should be listened to. One way a research project can have impact is by heeding those voices and meeting the needs of those Australians. However, in the 2018 update of the Australian Code, there is no longer an obligation on Australian institutions and researchers to encourage and facilitate consumer and community participation in research.
But will the same amount and scope of consumer and community-engaged research be conducted without that encouragement in the Australian Code?
It seems we are about to find out. We just wished there had been a national discussion about that change first – including targeted engagement with the populations who are now no longer encouraged to collaboratively participate in research, and who will potentially be relegated back to a position of being a subject within researcher designed projects and studies.
One way the current situation could be addressed would be in a good practice guide. The Australian Code (2018) is complemented with good practice guides, which suggest how institutions and researchers should interpret and apply the Australian Code’s principles and responsibilities to their practice. A good practice guide for collaborative research could reinforce the importance of consumer and community participation in research.
REFERENCES
Carlini, J. (18 January 2018) Consumer Co-design for End of Life Care Discharge Project. Research Ethics Monthly. Retrieved from: https://ahrecs.com/human-research-ethics/consumer-co-design-for-end-of-life-care-discharge-project
NHMRC1 (2007) Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research
NHMRC2 (2007 updated 2018) National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research
NHMRC (2016) Statement on Consumer and Community Involvement in Health and Medical Research
NHMRC (2018) Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research
NSQHS (2012) National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards
Pär Segerdah (2019) Ask the patients about the benefits and the risks. The Ethics Blog. Retrieved from: https://ethicsblog.crb.uu.se/2019/01/16/ask-the-patients-about-the-benefits-and-the-risks/
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
With grateful thanks to the following people for their contributions:
Delena Amsters, QHealth
Mark Israel, AHRECS
Mandy Nielsen, QHealth
Michael Norwood, Griffith University
Maddy Slattery, Griffith University
Colin Thomson AM, AHRECS
Nik Zeps, AHRECS, Epworth Healthcare
This post may be cited as:
Allen, G. & Ehrlich, C. (21 June 2019) We respect you… we just don’t need to hear from you any more: Should the consumer and their community participate in research as partners instead of just being subjects? Research Ethics Monthly. Retrieved from: https://ahrecs.com/research-integrity/we-respect-you-we-just-dont-need-to-hear-from-you-any-more-should-the-consumer-and-their-community-participate-in-research-as-partners-instead-of-just-being-subjects
1 thought on “We respect you… we just don’t need to hear from you anymore: Should the consumer and their community participate in research as partners instead of just being subjects?”
Australia would we well served by a national research integrity office that can assist research participants, researchers and institutions .