Rethinking benefit sharing in collaborative human genetic research from an Afrocommunitarian perspective

Data as scientific currency: Challenges experienced by researchers with sharing health data in sub-Saharan Africa

Innovative information-sharing techniques and rapid access to stored research data as scientific currency have proved highly beneficial in healthcare and health research. Yet, researchers often experience conflict between data sharing to promote health-related scientific knowledge for the common good and their personal academic advancement. There is a scarcity of studies exploring the perspectives of health researchers in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) regarding the challenges with data sharing in the context of data-intensive research. The study began with a quantitative survey and research, after which the researchers engaged in a qualitative study. This qualitative cross-sectional baseline study reports on the challenges faced by health researchers, in terms of data sharing. In-depth interviews were conducted via Microsoft Teams between July 2022 and April 2023 with 16 health researchers from 16 different countries across SSA. We employed purposive and snowballing sampling techniques to invite participants via email. The recorded interviews were transcribed, coded and analysed thematically using ATLAS.ti. Five recurrent themes and several subthemes emerged related to (1) individual researcher concerns (fears regarding data sharing, publication and manuscript pressure), (2) structural issues impacting data sharing, (3) recognition in academia (scooping of research data, acknowledgement and research incentives) (4) ethical challenges experienced by health researchers in SSA (confidentiality and informed consent, commercialisation and benefit sharing) and (5) legal lacunae (gaps in laws and regulations). Significant discomfort about data sharing exists amongst health researchers in this sample of respondents from SSA, resulting in a reluctance to share data despite acknowledging the scientific benefits of such sharing. This discomfort is related to the lack of adequate guidelines and governance processes in the context of health research collaborations, both locally and internationally. Consequently, concerns about ethical and legal issues are increasing. Resources are needed in SSA to improve the quality, value and veracity of data-as these are ethical imperatives. Strengthening data governance via robust guidelines, legislation and appropriate data sharing agreements will increase trust amongst health researchers and data donors alike.

Benefit-Sharing by Design: A Call to Action for Human Genomics Research

The ethical standards for the responsible conduct of human research have come a long way; however, concerns surrounding equity remain in human genetics and genomics research. Addressing these concerns will help society realize the full potential of human genomics research. One outstanding concern is the fair and equitable sharing of benefits from research on human participants. Several international bodies have recognized that benefit-sharing can be an effective tool for ethical research conduct, but international laws, including the Convention on Biological Diversity and its Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-Sharing, explicitly exclude human genetic and genomic resources. These agreements face significant challenges that must be considered and anticipated if similar principles are applied in human genomics research. We propose that benefit-sharing from human genomics research can be a bottom-up effort and embedded into the existing research process. We propose the development of a "benefit-sharing by design" framework to address concerns of fairness and equity in the use of human genomic resources and samples and to learn from the aspirations and decade of implementation of the Nagoya Protocol.

Webinar report: stakeholder perspectives on informed consent for the use of genomic data by commercial entities

In July 2020, the H3Africa Ethics and Community Engagement (E&CE) Working Group organised a webinar with ethics committee members and biomedical researchers from various African institutions throughout the Continent to discuss the issue of whether and how biological samples for scientific research may be accessed by commercial entities when broad consents obtained for the samples are silent. 128 people including Research Ethics Committee members (10), H3Africa researchers (46) including members of the E&CE working group, biomedical researchers not associated with H3Africa (27), representatives from the National Institutes of Health (16) and 10 other participants attended the webinar and shared their views. Several major themes emerged during the webinar, with the topics of broad versus explicit informed consent, defining commercial use, legacy samples and benefit sharing prevailing in the discussion. This report describes the consensus concerns and recommendations raised during the meeting and will be informative for future research on ethical considerations for genomic research in the African research context.

Decolonial health literature can increase our thinking about ethics dumping

This article draws on the underexplored or novel accounts of inclusion and the moral accounts of decolonization in African health decolonial literature to increase our understanding of how ethics dumping manifests in health research partnerships, and what more ought to be done to eliminate this phenomenon. African decolonial health literature proposes "inclusion that matters" - conceptualized as substantial, respectful and deep engagement with African agency - as a solution to end domination or mitigate the "appearance" of inclusion. Based on this supposition, the harm of ethics dumping - and I demonstrate how - is that it fails to engage the agency of Africans, and listen to or echo their voices in health and health research collaborations on the continent, or research collaborations that have significant implications for them. This account of inclusion can usefully increase our thinking about ethics dumping, which is ultimately and in several ways a failure to practice responsible science. Research is required to increase our understanding of what could reasonably constitute responsible science from a variety of perspectives.