Hi Heidi,
We actually have the opposite situation with our ethics committee. They request sites to provide adequate preventive methods for HIV vaccine trials participants. Their biggest concern , I believe, is how the site will ensure that participants are still able to receive adequate preventive methods after the end of the trial. One way to go is to provide methods that are available in the National Health System, that could be reached by the participants after the end of the study.
Regarding benefits of conducting stakeholder engagement:
Once, we had a rumor about buying blood in one of our studies. Some participants had the impression that the compensation given for transportation and for the time spent on the research was actually to buy their blood and the rumor was quickly spreading within the community surrounding the site. We immediately asked for support from the CAB that was well informed about the study and the reason why compensation was given. Our CAB, together with the site, actively engaged in establishing meetings with local community leaders to explain reasons to compensate participants as discuss strategies to revert the situation. Some of the suggestions were to have forum discussions with participants, others were to discuss within local community meetings. After a couple of months, trust was rebuilt. This could not have been achieved without transparency and mutual understanding between the site and stakeholders.
