Bridging research integrity and global health epidemiology (BRIDGE) guidelines: explanation and elaboration

Abstract

Over the past decade, two movements have profoundly changed the environment in which global health epidemiologists work: research integrity and research fairness. Both ought to be equally nurtured by global health epidemiologists who aim to produce high quality impactful research. Yet bridging between these two aspirations can lead to practical and ethical dilemmas. In the light of these reflections we have proposed the BRIDGE guidelines for the conduct of fair global health epidemiology, targeted at stakeholders involved in the commissioning, conduct, appraisal and publication of global health research. The guidelines follow the conduct of a study chronologically from the early stages of study preparation until the dissemination and communication of findings. They can be used as a checklist by research teams, funders and other stakeholders to ensure that a study is conducted in line with both research integrity and research fairness principles. In this paper we offer a detailed explanation for each item of the BRIDGE guidelines. We have focused on practical implementation issues, making this document most of interest to those who are actually conducting the epidemiological work.

What makes working together work? A scoping review of the guidance on North–South research partnerships

“…(2019) described eight principles for fair and equitable research partnerships in the Institute for Development Studies bulletin, which were also detailed in a report by the Rethinking Research Collaborative (2018) . The Bridging Research Integrity and Global Epidemiology (BRIDGE) guidelines featured in two journal articles ( Alba et al. , 2020a , b ), and a website provided supporting material.…”

“…In the Rethinking Research Partnerships report ( Cornish et al. , 2017 ), the authors highlighted six phases and structured the report into chapters around these: understanding the context, establishing the partnership, sustaining the partnership, designing and implementing research, communicating and ensuring impact and beyond the partnership , while Alba et al.’s (2020a) comprised six standards, or phases, of the research process. The phases were: s tudy preparation , protocol development, data collection, data management, data analysis and dissemination and communication.…”

Boosting ethics review capacity in public health emergency situations: Co‐creation of a training model for French‐speaking research ethics committees

“…For instance, in the introductive Module 1 , we listed some research carried out in DRC during outbreaks, natural disasters and armed conflicts in recent years, to trigger reflection on who are the key‐research stakeholders under such circumstances, and on the ethical challenges most frequently faced in these concrete in‐country situations. After Module 2 , where selected essential themes were presented and discussed (i.e., autonomy and informed consent; justice; beneficence and non‐maleficence; privacy and confidentiality; and vulnerability), Module 3 centred on the analysis of how these ethics themes are specifically applied in emergency epidemiological [ 30 ], clinical, and social science [ 31 ] research in DRC. Among the discussed challenges, there were the researcher's access to retrospective data and samples from public health surveillance (and relevant grounds for informed consent waiver); the proper identification of heads of households and—at a different level—of community representatives, as gatekeeper to the research; the justification for oral consent; the identification and mitigation of non‐medical risks in research, including therapeutic misconception, stigmatisation, psychological discomfort and legal security; the pertinence of a research for a given population, and the likelihood that they will be benefit from the research findings (i.e., benefit sharing).…”

Assisting you to advance with ethics in research: an introduction to ethical governance and application procedures

“…Studies in the past have also highlighted inconsistencies in institutional guidelines pointing to the fact that these inconsistencies may hinder the predicted research progress (Desmond & Dierickx 2021;Alba et al, 2020;Dellaportas et al, 2014;Speight 2016). It may also be possible that these were and still are linked to the institutional perceptions/expectations or the pre-empting contextual conditions that are imposed by individual countries.…”