TY - JOUR
T1 - "Is it safe?"
T2 - New ethics for reporting personal exposures to environmental chemicals
AU - Brody, Julia Green
AU - Morello-Frosch, Rachel
AU - Brown, Phil
AU - Rudel, Ruthann A.
AU - Altman, Rebecca Gasior
AU - Frye, Margaret
AU - Osimo, Cheryl A.
AU - Pérez, Carla
AU - Seryak, Liesel M.
PY - 2007/1/9
Y1 - 2007/1/9
N2 - The recent flood of research concerning pollutants in personal environmental and biological samples - blood, urine, breastmilk, household dust and air, umbilical cord blood, and other media - raises questions about whether and how to report results to individual study participants. Clinical medicine provides an expert-driven framework, whereas community-based participatory research emphasizes participants' right to know and the potential to inform action even when health effects are uncertain. Activist efforts offer other models. We consider ethical issues involved in the decision to report individual results in exposure studies and what information should be included. Our discussion is informed by our experience with 120 women in a study of 89 pollutants in homes and by interviews with other researchers and institutional review board staff.
AB - The recent flood of research concerning pollutants in personal environmental and biological samples - blood, urine, breastmilk, household dust and air, umbilical cord blood, and other media - raises questions about whether and how to report results to individual study participants. Clinical medicine provides an expert-driven framework, whereas community-based participatory research emphasizes participants' right to know and the potential to inform action even when health effects are uncertain. Activist efforts offer other models. We consider ethical issues involved in the decision to report individual results in exposure studies and what information should be included. Our discussion is informed by our experience with 120 women in a study of 89 pollutants in homes and by interviews with other researchers and institutional review board staff.
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U2 - 10.2105/AJPH.2006.094813
DO - 10.2105/AJPH.2006.094813
M3 - Article
C2 - 17666695
AN - SCOPUS:34548499884
SN - 0090-0036
VL - 97
SP - 1547
EP - 1554
JO - American Journal of Public Health
JF - American Journal of Public Health
IS - 9
ER -