Obligations and responsibilities of epidemiologists to research subjects.

Some important obligations and responsibilities of epidemiologists to research subjects include protecting the welfare of research subjects; proper conduct relating to informed consent; protecting privacy and maintaining confidentiality; communicating pertinent aspects of the research to study subjects; respect for the cultural setting in which the research is conducted; informing the study population about risk factors that the investigation discloses; and ensuring that economic or political consequences of the research findings do not harm the study subjects. These are discussed in this paper in the context of basic principles of biomedical ethics.