The Medical School, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, Lancashire, UK.
Philos Ethics Humanit Med. 2023 Aug 4;18(1):11. doi: 10.1186/s13010-023-00138-4.
Should research projects involving epidemiological modelling be subject to ethical scrutiny and peer review prior to publication? Mathematical modelling had considerable impacts during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to social distancing and lockdowns. Imperial College conducted research leading to the website publication of a paper, Report 9, on non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) and COVID-19 mortality demand dated 16th March 2020, arguing for a Government policy of non-pharmaceutical interventions (e.g. lockdowns, social distancing, mask wearing, working from home, furlough, school closures, reduced family interaction etc.) to counter COVID 19. Enquiries and Freedom of Information requests to the institution indicate that there was no formal ethical committee review of this specific research, nor was there any peer review prior to their online publication of Report 9. This paper considers the duties placed upon researchers, institutions and research funders under the UK 'Concordat to Support Research Integrity' (CSRI), across various bioethical domains, and whether ethical committee scrutiny should be required for this research.
涉及流行病学建模的研究项目在发表前是否应该接受伦理审查和同行评审？在 COVID-19 大流行期间，数学建模产生了相当大的影响，导致了社交距离和封锁。帝国理工学院进行了研究，导致网站上发布了一篇题为《非药物干预（NPIs）和 COVID-19 死亡率需求》的报告 9，该报告于 2020 年 3 月 16 日发布，主张政府采取非药物干预措施（如封锁、社交距离、戴口罩、在家工作、休假、学校关闭、减少家庭互动等）来应对 COVID-19。该机构的询问和信息自由请求表明，这项特定研究没有经过正式的伦理委员会审查，也没有在报告 9 在线发表前进行任何同行评审。本文考虑了在英国《支持研究诚信协议》（CSRI）下，研究人员、机构和研究资助者在各个生物伦理领域所承担的责任，以及这种研究是否需要伦理委员会审查。
