Project overview
This grant project provided course development, training, educational resources and case study development on improving research ethics in environmental health. This project was sponsored by the Syracuse University Dept. of Religion with collaborators at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, UMASS-Lowell, Tufts University, Brown University, RI, the Southeast Community Research Center, Atlanta, GA, and TriValley Cares, Livermore, CA. This project was funded through a grant from the National Institute of Health, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute Grant Program for “Short Courses in Research Ethics” (T15 A149650) from the years, 2000 – 2007. Course syllabi, training materials, research/conference papers and journal publications on research ethics and environmental health with place-based communities were developed in this NIH grant project.
About the research and training:
The Research Ethics in Environmental Health grant project included an interdisciplinary team of public health, social science, biomedical, behavioral and humanities researchers from Syracuse University and four other collaborating universities. We offered short courses that focused on ethical issues surrounding community-based research collaborations between professional researchers and communities in the fields of environmental and community health research. This interdisciplinary team provided unique experience in dealing with research ethics concerns for Native American, African-American, Hispanic, and Southeast Asian community populations in environmental and community health research.
The team offered short courses for research ethics training for community health research. In these courses, we identified key ethical concerns in community health research and illustrate them through case studies. We offered training on various theoretical ethical frameworks that are relevant to community health research. Ethical considerations with health research methodologies (epidemiology, exposure and risk assessment, environmental and medical monitoring) were discussed in the context of community-based environmental health research. These short course venues included semester-long courses (see course syllabi), as well as day-long, half-day, or seminar presentations for junior and senior scientists and for community activists concerned with research ethics issues. The Project team had given presentations in many national conference/workshop venues. The Project also sponsored a national conference on research ethics in May 2003.
All products from this grant can be found at this link for CIREE Grant Resources.