The Declaration of Helsinki is a statement of ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects, including research on identifiable human material and data.
As the Helsinki's main target is bio-medical research. Which ethical aspects are demands from health care research by social scientists?
For example,
1. Which ethical aspects should be addressed to claim that the study (related to health care research) has settled ethical considerations?
2. How to deal with the situation where an institute doesn't have Institutional Review Board (IRB) for ethical approval?
Social scientists usually conduct research through surveys using questionnaires, focus groups discussions, interviews...
Depending on the countries, there are: National Research Ethics Committees, regional research ethics committees, and intuitional research ethics committees or institutional review boards (IRBs). All these committees are supposed to be multidisciplinary, competent and independent. Concerning the territorial competence, a national committee could oversee all the proposed research protocols within the country. The regional and the institutional ones usually deal with protocols in their settings. If there is no institutional committee in your place, go to regional, or to the national level. If the country has no IRB at all, that means it is an urgent need to follow the procedure for the creation and functioning of IRBs. In this case the committee of the WHO is competent. At this stage of the health research ethics worldwide, no study involving directly or indirectly humans shall be implemented without an ethical clearance. I hope this could help. Take care.
Marceline has basically answered your second question. To answer your first there are many codes and guidelines that cover social science health research. If you follow these you should have no problem with either a competent REC/IRB and in gaining approval. That will also help with subsequent publication of your work.
Any of the major professional associations offer suitable codes or guidelines. Try also:
http://www.respectproject.org/main/index.php
Although the professional associations do not always directly address health or biomedical issues, you will find that they generally apply to research done in any field.
You might also find my book useful. Follow the checklist and there are links to the various codes:
Ethical Decision Making in Social Research
http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/?K=9780230296343
Thank you Dr. Marceline Ngounoue Djuidje and Prof. Ron Iphofen for your invaluable answers to my question.
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