Practice-based research with vulnerable populations: Protecting the rights, safety, and welfare of highly mobile research participants

To assure that the highest quality health care is provided to individuals who frequently migrate, and their families, both the practice of evidence-based medicine and the utilization of practice-based research are essential. When humans are the subject of study, Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) are charged with the responsibility for reviewing, approving, and monitoring the research to assure their protection and ethical treatment.  However, research with mobile, marginalized populations requires particular vigilance to ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place to protect their rights, safety, and welfare, and to see that such elements as cultural differences, language barriers, and literacy levels are taken into account in research design.  The Migrant Clinicians Network (MCN) IRB, is committed to serving farmworkers and other mobile poor with just such methods.
 
Presenters are:

• Loretta Heuer, PhD, RN
  Chair, Migrant Clinicians Network IRB
  and
  Associate Dean of Nursing and Allied Sciences North Dakota State University
• Melissa Brower, MPH
  New York Center for Agricultural Medicine and Health