IRB Process for Project
The Institutional Review Board (IRB) process is important for overseeing and making sure of the ethical conduct of research involving human participants. The purpose of the IRB is to review research proposals so that they comply with ethical guidelines to keep participants safe, and to protect privacy and confidentiality. My final project addresses maternal mortality by proposing an intervention targeting high-risk communities, and thus some ethical considerations need to be made.
Ethical Issues Related to the Final Project
One of the major ethical issues related to this project is informed consent. Participants who are in vulnerable groups must have full awareness of what the intervention entails, and if there are potential risks, and their rights to withdraw without any repercussions (Malgieri & Niklas, 2020). Since maternal mortality disproportionately affects marginalized groups like Black and Hispanic women??, ethics demands that these populations be not exploited and that they be provided equal access to the benefits of the research.
To that end, equity is an ethical issue that must be addressed. The proposed intervention focuses on extending Medicaid coverage and improving access to care in underserved communities?. However, there is the potential risk that the...
Addressing systemic inequities in maternal health care requires the extension of
healthcare services to all and...
…involved in this research program. The
nature of the data being collected ranges from physical health information (hypertension and diabetes) to mental health conditions (
postpartum depression). Privacy and
confidentiality protocols must be strictly enforced.
HIPAA has federal regulations for using medical data, and the IRB would probably require
compliance with HIPAA standards.
Furthermore, the participants in this intervention are from vulnerable communities that historically have experienced systemic discrimination in healthcare. We must protect the privacy of participants in these groups, as this is what would help with building trust and maintaining their willingness to participate in future healthcare initiatives?. If their personal information were to be leaked or misused, it could have negative repercussions for…
