RESYST researcher Sassy Molyneux has given a presentation about health systems research ethics as part of a webinar hosted by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The webinar brought together authors from a special issue of Developing World Bioethics which was published to build the field of health systems research ethics and promote scholarship in that area.
Sassy Molyneux presented on the ethical issues herself and colleagues, at the Kemri-Wellcome Trust Research Programme in Kenya, face when conducting health policy and systems research with health providers and managers.
In her talk (29:32), Sassy presents:
- The different (but often inter-related) top-down and ground-up approaches to thinking about research ethics.
- A background of why the team chose to conduct governance studies as a response to the major political devolution in Kenya.
- The range of issues faced across the three very different governance studies.
- A summary of the RESYST learning sites embedded approach in Kilifi County, Kenya
- Examples of ethical challenges concerning relationships
- The importance of positionality and reflexivity
- Specific challenges in relation to embedded research
- How ethics, power, gender and intersectionality are intertwined in the research
A recording of the webinar is now available.
Related resource
Ethical challenges in conducting embedded, long-term research - this policy brief discusses the specific ethical challenges faced when health systems researchers are embedded in the institutions they study. It also includes video interviews with researchers from the Kemri Wellcome Trust Research Programme.
