Global Health Otherwise shared a post on LinkedIn:
“Wars and conflicts create urgent need for health research, yet researchers face immense ethical challenges rarely addressed by existing guidelines.
This review article by O’Mathúna and Anderson (2026) examines these challenges using an eight-principle framework originally developed for clinical research in low-income countries.
Existing bioethics literature has largely overlooked war-related research ethics, with only a handful of studies specifically addressing armed conflict compared to broader humanitarian settings.
The authors show that conflict amplifies familiar ethical concerns around informed consent, participant safety, privacy and community partnership, while introducing distinct risks such as researcher trauma and moral distress that current frameworks fail to capture.
Their review draws on case studies, including harrowing accounts from Darfur, to demonstrate how instability disrupts data collection, ethics review and participant protection.
The authors argue that research during war remains ethically justified and necessary, but demands stronger safeguards and dedicated support systems for researchers. They call for funders and institutions to build local research capacity, protect research teams from harm, and develop clearer, conflict-specific ethical guidance.
O’Mathúna and Anderson (2026) show that health research during war remains ethically necessary but requires stronger protections for researchers and participants, plus clearer, conflict-specific ethical guidance and sustained funding support.”
Title: Ethical Issues Conducting Research During War and Violent Conflict: A Review
Authors: Donal O’Mathúna and Emily. E. Anderson.
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