Sharing Clinically Relevant Research Results with Active-Duty Special Operations Forces: Toward an Ethical Framework for Responsible Disclosure

Abstract

Structured acquisition and analysis of individual-level health data in the context of biomedical research can yield novel results with potential clinical or personal relevance to participants. While approaches to returning individual-level research results to study participants in civilian contexts have received some attention, unique ethical considerations informing approaches to sharing military research results, and particularly in research studies involving active-duty Special Operations Forces (SOF), are underexplored. As the number of research studies enrolling active-duty military personnel grows, an ethical framework to guide responsible handling and sharing of individual-level research results in these distinctive contexts is crucial to safeguard the rights and welfare of research participants and to elucidate appropriate practices for investigators. After exploring the landscape of ethical, clinical, legal, and logistical considerations, both motivating and complicating routine sharing of individual-level biomedical research results with active-duty SOF personnel, we propose a framework to guide responsible disclosure of results to capture potential benefits while mitigating possible risks.