A brief consideration of the ethics relevant to participatory needs assessments processes in Canada.

2. Needs Assessment
Participatory Needs Assessment
Source: Ross et al (2006)
Key characteristics of Participatory Needs Assessment:
User involvement and shared control of all evaluation functions, including technical tasks usually conducted by
professional evaluators.

3. Source: Draft Ethics FAQ, University of Guelph
• If the data collected is later used for a complete research, according to the TCPS 2 policies an REB review will be
required.
• The ‘A Project Ethics Community Consensus Initiative (ARECCI)’ Ethics Screening Tool
(http://www.aihealthsolutions.ca/arecci/screening/199907/8320a62a2c62c98e790f9facd931f9eb) may be used
to discern the REB review category of the project.

4. • Blurred role boundaries between researchers and participants
• Ownership and dissemination of data
• Community rights and representation
Power relations
• Variety of stakeholders
• Different expectation, motivation, timeline and inclusion criteria
Stakeholder
Engagement
• Context specific definition of benefit and welfare
• Conflict between institutional and local research ethics review board criteria
Alternative
interpretations
of ethics
Source: Banks et al 2013
Participatory approaches have a range of contributing factors that may
lead to ethical issues: