Institutional Review Board (IRB)
Since its founding over a decade ago, the community-based Institutional Review Board (IRB) at IWES has advised not only the methodology and veracity of our projects but especially their equity and practicality in community settings. We began using a community IRB because we champion the tenet that communities are the mechanism of change and not simply the site of change for intervention.
We aim to provide accessible, rigorous, equitable review for community-based organizations engaging in research as well as other organizations, coalitions, and partners pursuing community-engaged, community-based participatory, and/or participatory action research. The IRB also aims to increase community capacity around best practices in research ethics, research justice, and community-engaged research methodologies. We believe that in order to ensure respect for persons we need communal awareness, not just individual consent, and both rigorous research and community acceptance and approval should be given equal weight in consideration.
IRB membership intentionally reflects diverse perspectives from a balance of public health academics and implementers. Members have expertise in community engagement, community-based participatory action research, and mixed methodology research, with community practitioners from across disciplines including education, healthcare, mental health & social work, community & economic resiliency, and other facets of advocacy and community organizing. The training and tools afforded to members to guide review take a broader perspective, considering federal compliance and community equity with equal weight.
The IRB at IWES sustains review and approval of 10 discrete protocols, with project types ranging from demonstration and feasibility assessments to randomized control design. The most intimate of these projects serves 17 participants, while the most broad has enrolled over 1,200 early adolescents and is still growing!