Research among prisoners is fraught with ethical challenges. Research on ilegal, forbidden, private and/or taboo subjects, if conducted without solid ethical protections, can put individuals, groups, even prison authorities at risk for harm. In strict Russian prison regimes, formal consequences may be severe; complex and harsh social dynamics among prisoners may contribute to devastating social consequences.
During summer 2000, Medecins Sans Frontieres’ surveyed over 1,100 Russian prisoners as part of its pilot HIV/AIDS prevention and health promotion program for Russian prisons. Ethics were addressed at all steps of the research process: study design, facility access, selection of survey participants, obtaining valid consent, format of survey instrument, content of questions and responses, confidentiality and anonymity, data storage, analysis and presentation of results.
Lessons Learned: - It is possible to conduct ethical, methodologically sound social research in Russian prisons. - Holding ethics central to research design and decision-making reduces dilemmas. - Ethics are responsibility of entire research team. - Involving decision makers, participants, and counterparts increases the acceptance of ethics procedures and develops capacity. - Focus on-site negotiations on ethical principles. Ethics, combined with methodological and security principles, give common ground. - Making ethics a separate stage from the survey itself increases prisoners’ ability to choose freely about participating in research. - Efforts made to guarantee confidentiality and anonymity can contribute to high participation rate. - “I don’t want to answer” option contributes to high response rate. - Adapting presentation of results, even sacrificing specificity, may be necessary to protect privacy.
Learning Objectives: 1. Describe ethical constraints in HIV risk research in Russian prison context. 2. Identify specific measures taken by MSF throughout research process to establish ethical protections. 3. Apply MSF ethical methods to social research in other prison settings.
Keywords: Prison, HIV Risk Behavior
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: Medecins Sans Frontieres (Holland) - Moscow Office
I have a significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.
Relationship: employee