Dianne Quigley

Research ethics training on place-based communities and cultural groups

Funded by the National Science Foundation’s Ethics Education in Science and Engineering program, the Northeast Ethics Education Partnership (NEEP) has developed and implemented expanded human subjects training for graduate student researchers and faculty engaging with individuals and groups representing place-based communities and cultural groups. This paper reports on the importance of training graduate students in a series of short courses in environmental science, environmental engineering, and related fields including environmental studies, with an emphasis on research ethics involving place-based communities, cultural competence, and community-based research. New course content, recruitment, implementation strategies, and outcomes for this training effort at the two partnering universities are provided for this initiative.

Applying Bioethical Principles to Place-Based Communities and Cultural Group Protections: The Case of Biomonitoring Results Communication

In this article, an argument is made for extending bioethical principles to place-based community and cultural group protections when there are conflicting perspectives on reporting individual results of biomonitoring studies. Bioethical principles of beneficence, nonmaleficence, respect for autonomy, and justice can incorporate participatory decision-making and understandings of the group conditions of individual research participants, particularly for research studies with vulnerable groups. Arguments for and against biomonitoring communication to individual participants are reviewed here. Assessments of risks and benefits of biomonitoring communication can be improved by considering the contextual conditions of cultural groups and place-based communities. Providing participatory decision-making with all stakeholders about biomonitoring communication can provide more fair benefits than adopting a general, prescriptive clinical standard that favors only group report-backs when clinical utility is low and the scientific understandings of low dose exposures of chemical contaminants to humans are still uncertain.

Network priorities for social sustainability research and education: Memorandum of the Integrated Network on Social Sustainability Research Group

Abstract The Integrated Network for Social Sustainability (INSS) is a research-coordination network supported by the National Science Foundation that is currently in its third year of activities. Individual and institutional members, representing a wide range of fields and interests, are devoted to addressing social sustainability as an important, understudied issue under the broader rubric of sustainability and sustainable development. The INSS has developed a number of affinity groups and a set of activities to facilitate its development. An annual conference draws members together to review and report on their efforts. At the first conference, a group interested in developing a research agenda formed. This Community Essay shares its members’ perspectives about priorities for future research and education on social sustainability, highlighting efforts for greater inclusion of marginalized populations in research.

Building Cultural Competence in Environmental Studies and Natural Resource Sciences

ABSTRACT Environmental studies and natural resource sciences frequently engage diverse cultural groups in field practices and research. This article reviews evidence of the usefulness of cultural competence theory and its skill components in nursing, social work, and psychology to demonstrate the importance of analogous training in the environmental sciences. The Northeast Ethics Education Partnership (NEEP) has promoted short courses and workshops for training graduate students and faculty in environmental studies, natural resource sciences, and engineering in cultural competence. In conjunction with this training, NEEP has gathered and reviewed published accounts of environmental field experience with respect to cultural competence that participants found useful. This article describes materials and methods of this training; promotes the need to develop an “environmental cultural competence theory and practice”; identifies barriers to such theoretical development training in graduate schools; and suggests potential solutions.

Survey on Using Ethical Principles in Environmental Field Research with Place-Based Communities

Researchers of the Northeast Ethics Education Partnership (NEEP) at Brown University sought to improve an understanding of the ethical challenges of field researchers with place-based communities in environmental studies/sciences and environmental health by disseminating a questionnaire which requested information about their ethical approaches to these researched communities. NEEP faculty sought to gain actual field guidance to improve research ethics and cultural competence training for graduate students and faculty in environmental sciences/studies. Some aspects of the ethical challenges in field studies are not well-covered in the literature. More training and information resources are needed on the bioethical challenges in environmental field research relating to maximizing benefits/reducing risks to local inhabitants and ecosystems from research; appropriate and effective group consent and individual consent processes for many diverse communities in the United States and abroad; and justice considerations of ensuring fair benefits and protections against exploitation through community-based approaches, and cultural appropriateness and competence in researcher relationships.

Objectivity and Ethics in Environmental Health Science

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how to improve research beneficence and extend measures of objectivity in environmental health studies that take place in local, geographic communities, particularly those with culturally diverse groups. In this article, there is an emphasis on the community value of a research investigation, a community-based ethical obligation, which can be determined along with an ethic of scientific validity. By engaging in the research the participation of local community representatives and cultural groups along with academic research teams, community and social values are enhanced. Through community-based participatory research (CBPR) partnership or collaborative models, community value will be improved when the scientific design and methods of an environmental health investigation will incorporate local contextual conditions, cultural appropriateness/competence, community capacity-building, and other community-based measures of local beneficence. Additionally, with these CBPR models and ethical perspectives, evidence for extending objectivity into the multiple, interrelated impacts of environmental health threats, instead of single end point technical analyses, can be seen. This too increases community beneficence when the full extent of environmental health harms is accounted for and become part of remediation plans.