Rock Ethics Institute Colloquium
Tuesday, December 5, 3:00-4:00pm (Sparks 133)
“Community Driven Research with People who Use Drugs: Ethical Implications of Collaborative Research During Multiple Epidemics”
By Sarah Brothers, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Public Policy and CJRC Faculty Affiliate
Abstract: This talk examines the ethical implications of developing and implementing a primarily virtual Community Driven Research (CDR) project in collaboration with National Survivors Union (NSU), the American national drug users union, during COVID-19. Relationships between researchers and directly impacted people such as people who use drugs face many barriers. These issues were exacerbated during COVID-19 when in-person research decreased while drug-related harms increased.
In response, this project implemented a collaborative research model, which are considered beneficial and ethically appropriate for research with marginalized populations who have often had negative research experiences, for drug use research. The talk will draw on 29 months of weekly virtual group meetings in NSU online meeting spaces, group and individual text conversations, phone calls, and shared document group work, to discuss the CDR methods developed to fit the needs of this project. In CDR, impacted community members are fundamental drivers of the process. The project co-created inclusive, ethical approaches to center collaborators’ situated knowledge. These include low-threshold inclusive data collection and analysis, collaborative co-writing strategies, multiple forms of dissemination, and co-authorship practices that foreground collaborators’ perspectives. Modified CDR, by facilitating low-threshold research participation by people who use drugs, can aid inclusive scholarship, innovative ethical research with vulnerable groups, and effective public health policy for reducing morbidity and mortality in a time of multiple crises, including the overdose epidemic.
If you have questions about this event, please contact Ben Jones (btj7@psu.edu).
The Criminal Justice Research Center supported part of this work through a 2021 seed grant award for “Organized Knowledge Production by People who Use Drugs: Ethical Collaborative Research in Theory and Practice During the Overdose Epidemic.”