Ethical Decision-Making Methodology
Step 1: Determine the facts in the situation
- There is a pathogen in the water in Lesotho
- The research team will be there for 2 weeks
- They will interact with the residents to ask them to show them their water source and they will not be monetarily compensated.
- The goal is to develop a comprehensive profile of the pathogen
- The profile is estimated to be published several times
Identify Ethical Issue:
The ethical issues associated with this case are both whether the imposition of the research team on the communities of Lesotho poses a burden to the community or not, and whether the people of Lesotho should be compensated for their help given to the research team. Potentially there could be cultural significance to the water that would make the community members hesitant to have the water be treated with chemicals.
Step 2: Define the Stakeholders
- Researchers of this study
- Residents of Lesotho
- People associated with the publication of the study
- Researchers of neglected tropical diseases (scientific community)
- Funders
- National and regional government or organizations
Step 3: Assess the motivations of the Stakeholders
- Researchers gaining knowledge about the pathogen
- Residents hoping that their water will be made safe to drink through the process of getting their water tested
- People associated with the publication of the study who want a better understanding of this pathogen and possibly other neglected tropical diseases
- The scientific community wants to gain a better understanding of this pathogen
- The funders want to have their money well spent on research that is fruitful
- National and regional government and organizations would want to have this study externally funded yet solved
Step 4: Formulate (at least three) alternative solutions
- Mapping out the entire watershed aerially and testing the water that is close to residential areas, where it is assumed they get their water supply from.
- Pros: We don’t have to interact with the community at all and because of this, there is no question as to whether they should be monetarily compensated.
- Cons: Miss out on finding the true specific water sources, spend too much time and money traveling, and miss out on any local knowledge of the pathogen.
- Separating the study into two separate studies so that all interactions with the local residents would take place in one study and the second study would be coming in to collect water samples from water sources that have already been located according to information collected in the first study and having no residence interaction take place.
- Pros: Completely remove the IRB review process from the collection portion of the study, allowing each team to focus more intensively on their own part of the study.
- Cons: really expensive to have to fly out and be in that country two separate times, may have some miscommunication during the two separate trips/ have difficulty finding the locations during the two separate trips.
- Sending out an ad asking for local experts that you could employ during the two weeks you are there in order to get all the information from these 5-10 employed residents that you would be paying.
- Pros: you would only have to pay a specific number of residence compared to having to pay an open-ended number of residence
- Cons: the experts that you find could end up not being experts and you would ruin the two-week timeline set up.
Step 5: Seek additional assistance, as appropriate
- Make sure they don’t already have this data in government records
Step 6: Select the best course of action
The best course of action would be to stick with the original study plan of getting volunteers to help locate the water sources with no compensation. The reason for this would be that because there is a solid number of unemployed residents in the area, there would be people around that wouldn’t mind helping out as they are not doing other jobs during this time and it wouldn’t be wasting their time. It also would give you access to the greater local community instead of limiting you to only people who volunteered and thus getting more local information that could be helpful for the study. Some complications that may arise by doing the study this way would be that there may be a lack of people interested in being involved considering there is no immediate compensation for asking for volunteers. It also could be difficult to know where to go to find those with knowledge of the area.
Step 7: What are the implications of your solution on the venture
The implications of your solution on the venture would be getting access to the local community and getting their input and insider knowledge on how the water is used and what might be contributing to the infection rate of this parasite. It would also not cause complications with giving compensation to those who participate in giving information on the water sources.