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Abstract
Introduction Health and Demographic Surveillance Systems (HDSS) collect data on births, deaths and migration from relatively small, geographically defined populations primarily in Africa and Asia. HDSS occupy a grey area between research, healthcare and public health practice and it is unclear how ethics guidance that rely on a research-practice distinction apply to HDSS. This topic has received little attention in the literature. In this paper, based on empirical research across sub-Saharan Africa, we map out key ethical issues for HDSS and assess the relevance of current ethics guidance in relation to these findings.
Methods We conducted a qualitative study across seven HDSS sites in sub-Saharan Africa, including individual in-depth interviews and informal discussions with 68 research staff, document reviews and non-participant observations of surveillance activities. Qualitative data analysis drew on a framework approach led by a priori and emergent themes, drawing on the wider ethics and social science literature.
Results There were diverse views on core ethical issues in HDSS, including regarding the strengths and challenges of community engagement, informed consent and data sharing processes. A key emerging issue was unfairness in the overall balance of benefits and burdens for residents and front-line staff when compared with other stakeholders, particularly given the socioeconomic contexts in which HDSS are generally conducted.
Conclusion We argue that HDSS operate as non-traditional epidemiologic research projects but are often governed using ethics guidance developed for traditional forms of health research. There is a need for specific ethics guidance for HDSS which prioritises considerations around fairness, cost-effectiveness, ancillary care responsibilities, longitudinality and obligations of the global community to HDSS residents.
- health systems
- public health
- qualitative study
- epidemiology
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Footnotes
Handling editor Seye Abimbola
Twitter @AlexHinga, @sassy.molyneux
Contributors ANH collected the research data. All authors contributed to designing the study, data analysis and to writing the final version of the manuscript.
Funding This work was supported by the Initiative to Develop African Research Leaders (IDeAL), DELTAS Africa Initiative [DEL-15-003], Wellcome (203077_Z_16_Z) and The Global Health Bioethics Network (096527). The DELTAS Africa Initiative is an independent funding scheme of the African Academy of Sciences (AAS)'s Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa (AESA) and supported by the New Partnership for Africa's Development Planning and Coordinating Agency (NEPAD Agency) with funding from the Wellcome Trust [107769/Z/10/Z] and the UK government. The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and not necessarily those of AAS, NEPAD Agency, Wellcome Trust or the UK government.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent for publication Not required.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data availability statement The datasets generated and analysed during the study are not publicly available due to institutional rules and regulations but may be available from the corresponding author on reasonable request
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