New Policy Update From CIRA's Law, Policy and Ethics Core

While strong federal guidelines and institutional regulations exist to protect individuals who participate in medical and psychosocial research, very little oversight is provided to protect the people conducting the research from harm. Field work and data collection can carry substantial risk, and researchers are often unprepared to deal with these dangers.

CIRA's latest Policy Update, Risk to Researchers? Safety issues and solutions for individuals involved in fieldwork and data collection, reviews the existing literature on risk to researchers and suggests an agenda for future inquiry on this issue, especially as it relates to HIV care and prevention research.

Related Web sites:

• QUALITI (NCRM) Commissioned Inquiry into the Risk to Well-Being of Researchers in Qualitative Research: http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/socsi/qualiti/CIReport.pdf
• A Code of Practice for the Safety of Social Researchers: http://www.the-sra.org.uk/staying_safe.htm
• Safety in Social Research: http://sru.soc.surrey.ac.uk/SRU29.html

CIRA Sponsored Seminars and Meetings

1. There are currently no CIRA sponsored events.

General Announcements

1. CFAR SBSRN 4th National Scientific Meeting
   
   Date/Time: 10/01/09-10/02/09
   The Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Network (SBSRN) is intended to link the 20 Centers for AIDS Research (CFARs) and fellow behavioral scientists/researchers in the field funded by the NIH in the United States. The SBSRN is intended to 1) initiate mechanisms to encourage sharing resources; 2) to host an annual scientific meeting; 3) to provide a forum for a national mentoring program for junior and translational investigators, and 4) to promote collaborative multi-site research. This meeting is open to CFAR investigators and affiliates as well as all interested academic, public health and community members.
   Sponsors: Harvard University Center for AIDS Research and the Lifespan/Tufts/Brown Center for AIDS Research
   Location: Courtyard Boston Brookline, 40 Webster St, Coolidge Corner, Brookline, MA 02446
   Contact: For more information on the meeting including registration fees and schedule, please go to https://regstg.com/Registration/Introduction.aspx?rid=2e25e176-5f1c-4ae0-87af-5feaacf70e68.