By Military Woman
Question: How is health research for military/Veteran women going?
Answer: To meaningfully answer this important question we will need several columns. Last month’s column (Basics of Health Research Vol 29 Issue 9) defined what health research is and explained why it is so important, especially for military/Veteran women. Let’s continue to review the “basics of health research”, this time focusing on ethics.
The Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans – TCPS 2 (2018) defines the Canadian standards for ethics in research.
“Tri-Council” refers to the three federal agencies that were created by legislation to promote research within their respective mandates. The three agencies are:
1) the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) who funds research that improves health for Canadians, creates more effective health services and products and/or strengthens the Canadian health care system;
2) the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) who funds social sciences and humanities research; and
3) the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) who funds natural sciences (not health) and engineering research.
In 1998, these three agencies came together to write the first version of the TCPS. In 2001, the three agencies created the Panel on Research Ethics (PRE) to act as their advisory board and the Secretariat on Responsible Conduct of Research (SRCR) to support the PRE. Under the Executive Director leadership of Ms. Susan Zimmerman, the SRCR also provides external advice on how to best interpret or apply the now updated TCPS 2 (2018).
The TCPS 2 is a policy document recommended for everyone with an interest in research, ethics, or participation in research to read. Generally speaking, clinical health and wellbeing related research will be CIHR or SSHRC funded and mandated to follow the TCPS 2. Military/Veteran specific health research may also access funding outside of CIHR or SSHRC, in which case the TCPS 2 is still followed but on a voluntary, versus mandatory, basis.
To best understand ethics in Canadian research, you are encouraged to sign up for a free online course entitled TCPS 2: Core-2022. This course is open to anyone wishing to take it voluntarily, while concurrently being considered mandatory training for researchers. Especially if you participate in military/Veteran specific research projects yourself, please consider taking the course for your own awareness and education. Beyond the knowledge you will gain about your rights as a research participant, in less than four hours you can have a beautiful downloadable certificate to add to your resume!
The TCPS 2 document and course both reinforce that the fundamental value upon which research ethics in Canada is based is “respect for human dignity”. This value being expressed in the TCPS 2 through three core and complementary principles.
1) Respect for Persons. Researchers shall provide participants with all information required to understand fully the risks, purpose and potential benefits related to their research project before seeking the participant’s independent, free, and ongoing consent to participate.
2) Concern for Welfare. Researchers shall avoid exposing participants to unnecessary risks that could negatively impact the person, or the group to which that person belongs, physically, mentally, spiritually, economically, or socially.
3) Justice. Researchers shall recognize their dual responsibility, to treat both the individual participant and the group and community they come from, fairly and equitably. Research should always be considered from the perspectives of the participants, not just from the perspectives of the institution or group funding the research.
The TCPS 2 document and course both reinforce that ethical research mandates that participants must have truly “informed” consent to participate. More broadly, the TCPS 2 also requires that all research participants, and the group and community they come from, must be treated with dignity, from the recruitment process to the final sharing and dissemination of research results.
Failure to follow the TCPS 2 can result in a wide range of institutional and agency recourses as outlined in the Tri-Agency Framework: Responsible Conduct of Research (2021).
For a quick summary about ethics in Canadian research: When in doubt – follow the TCPS 2 !
