Defining

RESEARCH ETHICS PRINCIPLES

Fatima Alvarez Castillo

DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

PHILIPPINE COUNCIL FOR HEALTH RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
PHILIPPINE HEALTH RESEARCH ETHICS BOARD
Dr Professor Leonardo (Leo) de
Castro

PHILIPPINE HEALTH RESEARCH ETHICS BOARD

Committee on Information Dissemination, Training, and Advocacy
National Ethical
Guidelines for Research
Involving Human
Participants, 2022

Phil Health Research Ethics

Board (PHREB)
 Sources of the guidelines
• Historical & Philosophical Sources (from the
Greeks to Kant to John Rawls) (Western)
• Belmont Report (US) (Tuskegee
experiments)
(WHO, CIOMS)
• There are other ethics frameworks and sets of
principles

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 Ethics of Care (EoC)

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Committee on Information Dissemination, Training, and Advocacy
 Ethics of Care (EoC)

Key elements
• Empathy & Care
• Accountability & Relationship

Used in feminist research

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 Ubuntu (Communitarianism)

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• essentially means "humanity“
• "I am because we are" or “I am because
you are“; or "humanity towards others“.
• In Xhosa (it) is often meant in a more
philosophical sense to mean "the belief in a
universal bond of sharing that connects all
humanity.
(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_philosophy)

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 Illustration of EoC & Ubuntu
The anthropologist who did her dissertation with
the MILF

The MA student who researched with an

indigenous community in Palawan

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 4 Principles (PHREB)

1. Most basic/ the minimum

Do no harm
Direct, Indirect
Participant
3rd party (Tuskegee experiment; genetic
research like Lubag)

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 Harm to the nation: Larena-
Jakobsson genetics study of Phil IPs
(Uppsala Univ, Sweden)

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 #2 BENEFIT

• Our research must benefit

• We do not treat research
participants as means to an end
but always as an end ( Kant)
(Walang gamitan)
• If no benefit, that is exploitation

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 Types/Forms of Benefit
Examples of direct benefit
- Material (money, goods)
- Knowledge
- Services (medical care)
- Self esteem
- Catharsis

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• Examples of indirect benefit
New technology
- Environmentally friendly transportation
Govt Policies /Programs
- Safe street foods

NEGRIHP: Indirect benefits can not be guaranteed.

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MAXIMIZING BENEFITS
Participants
In social research
Eg:
- Covid trauma study (catharsis)
- Study of Indigenous People’s experience wd
research (new knowledge about their rights in
research)

In your researches, how can benefits be maximized?

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#3: RESPECT FOR PERSON

“A recognition of the personal dignity and

autonomy of individuals, and special protection
for those with diminished autonomy”
- National Ethical Guidelines –

- Dangal –
- Kalayaan -

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APPLICATION
1. Participants
Abide by all the principles
Respect rights
Treat with respect
Honor choices (free and informed
consent)
Protect the vulnerable (BUT DON’T
PATRONIZE)
2. Community
Consider values/culture
Involve them in decision making

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Free and Informed Consent
• Permission given by a
person to act on
him/her/them
• Given by one who knows
what will be done, freely
and voluntarily chooses to
have it done, and
expresses that choice
• Must be before start of
research

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 4. JUSTICE
Golden rule:
“Do not do to others what you don’t want done
to you”
• Do not deprive others their due

Katarungan

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WHAT IS DUE...
• Fundamental rights and freedoms
(minimum: UN Dec of Human Rights, Phil
Constitution Bill of Rights)
• Ethics reviewers as duty bearers

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JUSTICE IN RESEARCH
1. FOR ALL STAKEHOLDERS Reduce
inequalities or at least do not worsen
existing ones
– No COI (conflict of interest)
– Share burdens and benefits fairly
2. SOCIETY
– Population to benefit (Ex: poor
benefits from medical research)

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JUSTICE IN RESEARCH
3. PARTICIPANTS
– fair selection of participants (ex:
students???)
– just compensation
– benefit sharing
Injustice: Poor disproportionately
bear burden of research but least to
benefit from it

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 JUST COMPENSATION
• Not exploitative BUT Not undue
• Consider:
– Full reimbursement of expenses related to participation:
lost earnings, transportation, food, companion
– If no direct benefit: consider discomfort, inconvenience,
time given
– If difficult to recruit: positive incentive provided not undue
– if harm/wrong/injury: positive correction
• Remunerations per visit not at end of study

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Exploitation
• Exploitation
occurs when
one or more
parties in an
exchange get
much less than
what they had
contributed/giv
en (Schroeder,
Lucas 2013)
Exploitation in
research is
oftentimes
unintentional (Prof
Doris Schroeder)
(yan ang mas
delikado…Bakit?)
 Sikolohiyang Pilipino (Virgilio
Enriquez)
• kapuwa, pakikipagkapuwa
• What is meant by Kapuwa? - connotes “unity of
the self and others”
• recognizes shared identity
• means extension of the self

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• Pakikipagkapuwa is not pakikisama
• pakipagkapuwa is both sa paninindigan
(conviction) and a value
• means accepting and dealing with the other
person as an equal
• Pakikisama, on the other hand, connotes
conformity even to social evils such as
corruption.
• When one is walang pakikisama others might
say that he or she will eventually learn how to get
along, but when one is walang kapuwa-tao, he or
she is considered hopeless, the worst kind of
person
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Reflection/Self Reflexivity
Meron ba tayong ginawang research that we
(unintentionally) exploited those we studied?

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 SALAMAT

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SMALL GROUP WORK
Applying Research Ethics Principles
Instructions: With the very limited information
about the scenario/case, use your imagination
to
• Identify
- one potential benefit and one potential risk of
harm
- one step to respect person

- one possible injustice

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SCENARIO 1
Study on effects of lockdown on
mental health of adolescents to
develop a psycho-social
intervention. The researchers will
do content analysis of the
adolescents’ posts in Facebook
from April 2020 – August 2020.
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SCENARIO 2
Experimental research on effect of
online access to teacher on
students’ learning.
2 Student groups: one allowed
email access to teacher; the
other group, no email access.
Final exam results will be used to
determine who did better.
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3 Identical Strangers. Documentary film by Tim
Wardle
• about the lives of 3 identical
triplet brothers adopted as
infants by separate families.,
it recounts how the triplet
brothers discovered one
another by chance in New
York in 1980 at age 19, their
public and private lives in
the years that followed, and
their eventual discovery that
their adoption had been part
of an undisclosed scientific
"nature versus nurture"
study of the development of
genetically identical siblings
raised in
differing socioeconomic circ
umstances
• Tuskegee, 1930s
 Scenario 4
Safety & Convenience
A mixed team of researchers from engineering,
sociology & architecture conducted a study on
what the public will prioritize: safety or
convenience. They joined the commuters at
different times of the day in different spots in
Metro Mla, observing their behavior and listening
to their conversations regarding their reaction to
the additional railings on the sidewalk that would
mean they cannot cross the street outside of the
pedestrian lanes.
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 Scenario 5
In 2022, a survey was done on people’s attitude to &
beliefs about anti covid vaccine. The findings will be
used to develop an information campaign to
encourage compliance with the govt’s vaccine
program. Researchers randomly sampled household
heads. Each is interviewed for 15 minutes, face to face.
There was no separate informed consent form because
the act of answering the questionnaire is deemed to be
an act of consent.
The researchers gave the respondents multivitamins
and minerals to boost their immune system as benefit.
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