Social Networking and Online Recruiting for HIV Research Ethical Challenges

• Published in: Journal of empirical research on human research ethics Vol. 9; no. 1; pp. 58 - 70
• Main Author: Curtis, Brenda L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA University of California Press 01.02.2014; SAGE Publications; Sage Publications Ltd
• Subjects: Acquired immune deficiency syndrome; Advertising; Advertising research; AIDS; Confidentiality; Ethics committees; Ethics, Research; Health Services Needs and Demand; HIV; HIV Infections - prevention & control; Human immunodeficiency virus; Humans; Information Dissemination; Informed Consent; Internet; Medical research; Online recruitment; Online social networking; Patient confidentiality; Patient Selection - ethics; Practice Guidelines as Topic; Privacy; Recruitment; Research ethics; Research studies; Research Subjects; Social ethics; Social media; Social Networking; Social networks; Training a New Generation of HIV Researchers; privacy; ethics Internet research; informed consent; online recruitment; social media
• ISSN: 1556-2646; 1556-2654; 1556-2654
• DOI: 10.1525/jer.2014.9.1.58

Social networking sites and online advertising organizations provide HIV/AIDS researchers access to target populations, often reaching difficult-to-reach populations. However, this benefit to researchers raises many issues for the protections of prospective research participants. Traditional recruitment procedures have involved straightforward transactions between the researchers and prospective participants; online recruitment is a more complex and indirect form of communication involving many parties engaged in the collecting, aggregating, and storing of research participant data. Thus, increased access to online data has challenged the adequacy of current and established procedures for participants’ protections, such as informed consent and privacy/confidentiality. Internet-based HIV/AIDS research recruitment and its ethical challenges are described, and research participant safeguards and best practices are outlined.