Ethics of community-based research

Abstract While community-based research, service-learning, citizen science, and other approaches offer many benefits for community members and their communities, the literature often glosses over the ethical challenges researchers encounter when engaging diverse stakeholders. Through the years however, action research and citizen science work have also revealed a number of unintended negative outcomes, particularly when academic partners employ top-down research agendas. Despite the well-meaning intentions of the researchers, such lack of cultural awareness leads to mistrust by those who might benefit most from the outcomes of the research. Alternatively, we describe a bottom-up approach to community-based research that builds trust, incorporates local knowledge, and sustains partnerships to achieve mutually beneficial long-term goals. We describe our rules of thumb for ethical community engagement and highlight best practices that empower community action and compliments a community’s own adaptive capacity and resiliency.