UT human subjects research community earns accreditation status
The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston joined 12 other organizations in earning accreditation from the Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs (AAHRPP) June 18.
AAHRPP is a non-profit organization that works with organizations that conduct human research to raise the level of protection for research participants. AAHRPP accredits organizations that can demonstrate they provide participant safeguards that surpass the threshold of state and federal requirements.
The AAHRPP seal identifies an organization as a gold standard for human research subject safety.
“The award of this accreditation is a tribute to the dedication of our researchers, institutional officials, members of our Institutional Review Board (IRB), the Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects (CPHS), to the ethical and responsible conduct of all aspects of our human research programs,” said Dr. Peter Davies, executive vice president of research.
Dr. Larry Kaiser, president of the health science center, considered the accreditation further validation of the overall excellence of the UT human subjects protection program.
“The safety of those who volunteer as subjects for research studies always is the primary consideration in the minds of our researchers,” he said. “I am extremely proud that this national accrediting organization known for its rigorous standards has recognized the outstanding program that is in place at our institution and the incredible work on the part of Sujatha Sridhar, Cynthia Edmonds, Robert Nobles, and a number of others, that went into making this program a model for the rest of the country. In addition, the success of this application reflects the dedication that Dr. Anne Dougherty, executive chair of the CPHS, and her colleagues on the IRB bring to ensure that we have a very strong IRB focused on the ethical aspects of human subjects research.”
“The accreditation process took over two years of concerted effort from numerous individuals at the health science center,” said Sridhar, director of the Clinical Trials Resource Center. “Through this rigorous accreditation process, we have demonstrated that we have extensive safeguards at every level of our human subjects research operation and that we adhere to the highest standards for human subjects research.”
Nine guiding principles serve as the framework for the AAHRPP “seal of approval”; they include participant protection and ethical treatment and address conflicts of interest, community outreach, and education.
Organizations that strive for this accreditation must demonstrate that superior ethical standards, safety, and efficient systems for monitoring safety thread through the entire research operation. Davies also highlighted the contributions of the staff of the Committee on the Protection of Human Subjects and cited the exemplary principles and practices of the research program that existed before the two-year accreditation process began.
“The most important aspect of this accreditation is not the application, per se, but the fact that we have an accreditable program — not just an accreditable program, but an outstanding program for the protection of human research subjects,” Davies commented.
Davies added that at the end of their site visit to the health science center campus, the AAHRPP visitors “commented specifically on the quality of our program and the extent to which our researchers and the IRB members and staff worked together collaboratively to ensure the protections provided to all who participated in our research programs.”
— Karen K. Kaplan, Office of Institutional Advancement, Institutional Communications