Affiliation:
1. Associate professor at Health‐Promoting Complex Interventions in the Department of Health Sciences at the Faculty of Medicine at Lund University
2. Adjunct professor at the Faculty of Medicine at Lund University
3. Associate professor in Integrative Health Research in the Department of Health Sciences at the Faculty of Medicine at Lund University
Abstract
ABSTRACTIn 2021, we were designing a research study in Sweden in which we planned to use newspaper articles focusing on children and adolescents under the age of eighteen during the Covid‐19 pandemic as empirical material. As we developed this study, an ethical question arose: do studies using journalistic articles that may contain health information about individuals as empirical material have to be approved by an ethics review committee? Sweden, in contrast to other countries, requires the approval of an ethics review committee for the use of publicly available material in research when such material might include sensitive personal data such as health‐related information. This case study calls for harmonized laws and policies that support global research by clarifying what kinds of empirical material and what types of research must be assessed by national ethics review committees, including with consideration for children's safety and rights.