Addressing Accessibility Issues in Institutional Review Board Policies

Abstract

Legislation mandates addressing accessibility issues in educational practices to foster equal access for all students and faculty. Educational practices include research. Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) can contribute to equality in higher education by requiring equal opportunity for persons with different abilities to participate in or conduct research, an area overlooked by IRBs. We contend this is a legal and ethical responsibility under IRBs' protection from harm requirement as well as laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). A keyword search of the 55 original land grant universities in the United States' IRB policies and related documents produced no evidence of accessibility concerns for general research participant pools or researchers. Recommendations to correct this oversight and areas for further study are included.

Family Perspectives on In-Home Multimodal Longitudinal Data Collection for Children Who Function Across the Developmental Spectrum

“…Unequal access to research opportunities has been described as both a legal and ethical issue. 29 Despite research showing that communities with disabilities are keen to engage in research, 30 many studies either directly exclude these groups or engage in indirect exclusion by lacking accessible methods, thus contributing to disparities in health research and care. Families recognized adapted in-home methods as having the potential to increase accessibility to research for those with developmental and medical needs and in rural and remote communities.…”