Absolutely. Thank you.
Certainly Dr. Sareen does some very big data analysis in some of these population-based epidemiological studies, and that is a very different kind of research, because we don't have a lab when we do qualitative research. Once we have a proposal, once we have funding to actually do the study, then we can proceed. Part of the operationalization of a project involves ethical clearance. You have to have a scientifically sound design, and it has to be approved at the university level for any potential ethical concern. If there are multiple university researchers involved in a particular project, we actually have to go through multiple university research ethics boards.
For the study that I mentioned, we actually have to go through three different university research ethics boards to get approval before we can even begin to move forward with the recruitment process. Part of the evaluation at the ethics review board level involves looking at a letter of information so that people have informed consent. They find out what the study is about, how their information will be used, who will have access to the information they are providing, how it will be recorded, and whether they have rights to stop if they feel uncomfortable. All those kinds of things are outlined. The tri-council guidelines on ethics must be followed by all of the academic university researchers, and so the ethical review boards give an extraordinarily granular review of all documents, including what questions we intend to ask, what the samples are, whether there is undue burden on the sample, or whether we place anyone at any kind of enhanced risk. All of those things are considered at the university level, and often by multiple sites. That is before we can even begin the recruitment process.