Rethinking Local Institutional Review Board (IRB) Review at State Health Departments: Implications for a Consolidated, Independent Public Health IRB

Abstract

A number of unique problems plague human research protection efforts at United States (US) State and Territorial Departments of Health (DOHs). The first problem is related to the number of Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) operated by and Federalwide Assurances (FWAs) held by DOHs. The lack of these two essential regulatory human research protection program mechanisms points to a possible inadequacy of infrastructure at DOHs for protecting human subjects. The second and third problems are related to the use and interpretation of research protection laws and regulations at DOHs. Parsing public health activities into research or practice (1) can be vexing and (2) likely produces variability in (a) how individual DOHs make the determination between research and practice and (b) the outcomes of such decisions for the same or similar projects. A related problem is that DOH or Institutional Review Board (IRB) officials might misclassify public health practice activities as research (and vice versa), which can have costly, adverse consequences.