Protecting Vulnerable Participants

Planning is underway for the 8th Annual AAHRPP Conference in Denver, Colorado on April 18-20. The theme for the conference is Protecting Vulnerable Participants.
The conference will start with a plenary and panel discussion of defining vulnerability, followed by sessions on providing additional protections for vulnerable participants in research. While the topics will include pregnant women, prisoners, children, and people with diminished capacity to consent, the conference will also delve into other potentially vulnerable populations, for example Native Americans. The conference will also have a strong emphasis on metrics and case studies. The final plenary will deal with the provocative question of whether genetic research makes everyone vulnerable. Sessions on tissue banks and data repositories and technical requirements for maintaining confidentiality of data will also be presented. An all day pre-conference is also planned to provide people seeking initial AAHRPP accreditation, and those applying for reaccreditation, with key information about the AAHRPP Standards and the accreditation and reaccreditation processes. Additional information will appear on the AAHRPP Website as it becomes available. Registration will open on November 1, 2011. If you would like to propose topics you would like to see covered at the conference, or have interesting case studies related to vulnerable participants that you would be willing to share, please contact Peter Vasilenko at pvasilenko@aahrpp.org.