Title: Observational Study of IRB's
Dates: 7/1/2012 - 6/30/2017
Funder: National Institutes of Health
Funding: $3,772,913
PI: Charles Lidz, Ph.D.

Description: Institutional review boards (IRBs) act as oversight bodies for assuring ethical conduct of research but there has been little investigation of their decision-making process. With funding from NIH, we did a general descriptive study of the decisions about new and previously deferred protocols. By applying both quantitative and qualitative research techniques to tape-recorded IRB deliberations, and semi-structured interviews with IRB staff and reviewers, we are describing the processes of decision making.