Conducting ethical research in crisis situations: COVID-19

Disasters, humanitarian emergencies and pandemics are characterised by crisis conditions that require urgent attention. This chapter explores how ethical evidence from research should be used to inform policy during a pandemic. Often scientific evidence is lacking in many areas, leading to uncertainty about how to respond and generate policies. The COVID-19 pandemic is used here to highlight ethical challenges for researchers and policymakers in crisis situations. The novelty of the virus created an urgent need for research. On top of the technical challenges of conducting research during a pandemic, ethical challenges arose regarding the balance between methodological rigour and public health urgency. Should less rigorous research be conducted to produce some evidence sooner? Once results become available, should they go through the normal, lengthy review process, or be made available more quickly? This urgency led to the public availability of preprint versions of manuscripts before they were given rigorous peer-review. Policymakers, practioners, media and the public were faced with decisions over whether to use those manuscripts or wait for the revised published versions. With the many publications available on COVID-19, users of research results have an ethical responsibility to evaluate, or critically appraise, all reported findings.