Resources
AVAC
Essential Principles & Practices for GPP Compliance: Engaging stakeholders in biomedical research during the era of COVID-19
This new tool from AVAC helps guide stakeholder engagement during the pandemic. It has been built from their Good Participatory Practice (GPP) guidelines and encourages meaningful engagement within clinical research processes even within the urgent timelines of COVID-19 research. Download the guide here.
UNICEF
Impacts of Pandemics and Epidemics on Child Protection: Lessons learned from a rapid review in the context of COVID-19
This rapid review collates and synthesizes evidence on the child protection impacts of COVID-19 and previous pandemics, epidemics and infectious disease outbreaks. It provides lessons for global and national responses to COVID19 and recommendations for future research priorities.
University of Oxford
The Practice and Ethics of Participatory Visual Methods for Community Engagement in Public Health and Health Science
This course provides guidelines on the practice and ethics of participatory visual methods (PVM) with emphasis on their use in low and middle-income countries for community and public engagement in health and health science. It was produced as part of the Mesh Community Engagement Network learning and training resources.
Mesh Community Engagement Network
Engagement with Vaccine Studies
Following a Mesh workshop exploring public and community engagement with vaccine studies held in autumn 2020 this resource area was created. Each of the four workshop sessions had a loose overarching theme chosen to enable participants to unpack some of the complex issues surrounding engaging communities with vaccine research and development. Under each theme below we share projects, thoughts from participants and ways of supporting impactful engagement activities.
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) resources
Mesh is an online network and resource hub for people working in community engagement with global health research. Mesh’s Epidemic theme area brings together resources on community engagement within the context of epidemic preparedness and response, and now signposts to dedicated materials related to the current COVID-19 pandemic. These resources give guidance on good participatory practice, risk communication and incorporating community engagement and into both the humanitarian and clinical research response.
PHEPREN - Epidemics Ethics
Epidemics Ethics Resources
PHEPREN is a global community of bioethicists building on pre-existing expertise and resources to provide real-time, trusted, contextual support to communities, policy makers, researchers, and responders in relation to the ethical issues arising out of global health emergencies, with a current focus on the COVID-19 pandemic. This table of resources developed by PHEPREN can be filtered by type, region or subject area, and users can select resources secific to COVID-19.
WHO
Coronavirus disease (COVID-2019) R&D Blueprint
The R&D Blueprint is a global strategy and preparedness plan that allows the rapid activation of R&D activities during epidemics. Its aim is to fast-track the availability of effective tests, vaccines and medicines that can be used to save lives and avert large scale crisis. Below are the latest WHO R&D reports relating to ethical standards in COVID-19 research:
Key criteria for the ethical acceptability of COVID-19 human challenge studies
This document aims to provide guidance to scientists, research ethics committees, funders, policy-makers, and regulators in deliberations regarding SARS-CoV-2 challenge studies by outlining key criteria that would need to be satisfied in order for such studies to be ethically acceptable.
Integrating Ethics in infectious disease outbreaks
This platform discusses the principles governing such decision-making in a infectious disease outbreak, how to employ them, and how you to integrate ethics in all aspects of the outbreak response. You will find several ethics resources here that you can be used by public health officials, frontline workers, and those working in health research.
Guidelines on Ethical Issues in Public Health Surveillance
The goal of the guideline development project was to help policymakers and practitioners navigate the ethical issues presented by public health surveillance. This document outlines 17 ethical guidelines that can assist everyone involved in public health surveillance, including officials in government agencies, health workers, NGOs and the private sector.
English | Spanish
Ethics in epidemics, emergencies and disasters: Research, surveillance and patient care
This manual has two parts: Part 1 covers ethical issues in research and surveillance, such as conflicts that might arise between the common good and individual autonomy, ethics oversight and publication ethics. Part 2 covers patient care, including triage, standards of care and the professional duties of health care workers in emergencies.
English | Mandarin
Guidance for managing ethical issues in infectious disease outbreaks
This document seeks to assist policy-makers, health care providers, researchers, and others prepare for outbreak situations by anticipating and preparing for the critical ethical issues likely to arise.
English | French | Mandarin
Ethical considerations for health policy and systems research
Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research (WHO) with the Global Health Ethics Unit (WHO)
This document provides researchers and research ethics committees (RECs) with a series of “points to consider” for clear identification, consideration and communication of ethical issues in health policy and systems research (HPSR).
Expert consultation on the use of placebos in vaccine trials
Meeting report of an expert consultation on the use of placebo in vaccine trials, held in 2013. It considers the major ethical issues and makes recommendations accordingly.
Kings College London
COVID-19 Update for Researchers
Update and guidance in light of the COVID-19 pandemic relating to research projects involving face-to-face participant interaction.
AMA Journal of Ethics
COVID-19 Ethics Resource Center
Resource bank aiming to promote ethical reflection and decision making during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nuffield Council on Bioethics
Research in global health emergencies
Published in January 2020, this report presents the findings of a two year in-depth inquiry into the ethical issues relating to research in global health emergencies. The inquiry was run by an international working group which gathered evidence and experience from many contributors across the globe. A report overview for ethics committees is available here.
Full Report
English
Report Overview
English | Arabic | French | Mandarin | Spanish | Portuguese
The Nuffield Council has drawn together a list of resources which focus on ethical aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. These are split into the following sections:
- Opinions and blog
- Other news pieces
- Journal articles
- Guidance and policy
- Courses
- Multimedia content
- Resource collections on other websites
MRCT Centre - University of Harvard
MRCT Ethics Essential Elements and Points to Consider Reference Document
The purpose of this guidance is to encourage protocol authors to address ethical issues in the design of studies, documenting their rationale, in a section of the protocol easily understood by review boards and investigators.
WHO
Risk communication and Community Engagement
The WHO provides a number of publications on Community Engagement surrounding COVID-19. The individual articles can be accessed using the links below:
- Mental Health Considerations during COVID-19 Outbreak
- The COVID-19 risk communication package for healthcare facilities
- COVID-19 SMS message library
Courses
Clinical Ethics and COVID-19
The University of Melbourne has designed a course for clinicians in hospital care and primary settings. The aim of the course is to to provide structured ways of navigating the clinical ethics challenges generated by the COVID-19 pandemic.