Ethics, epidemiology and access
Moblization for community involvement in microbicide trials
Community advisory boards are not always the best way of involving communities in trials
Authors:
; Global Campaign for Microbicides
Publisher:
Global Campaign for Microbicides, 2004
This report, from the Global Campaign for Microbicides, describes the challenges and strategies discussed during a 2003 meeting in South Africa on community involvement in microbicide trials. The report highlights the unique challenges in microbicides research that make community involvement both important and difficult to attain. However, it emphasises that there are overall benefits to communities which host prevention trials, as well as to institutions trying to conduct research in an ethical way.
In order to achieve meaningful community involvement in clinical trials, the report argues that an institutional approach involving community advisory boards is not always the only or best mechanism for involving communities in microbicides research. Instead, a variety of strategies for mobilising partnerships between researchers and communities are appropriate, and community involvement should be planned in collaboration with the community itself. Mechanisms should also be developed for separate programmes to share experiences, outputs and lessons learned. Training for both community liaison staff and community members should be expanded and should cover community mobilisation and advocacy, Participatory Action Research, contextual knowledge of HIV and AIDS, gender analysis of health, HIV and AIDS, and research ethics.
