Paying Research Participants

Introduction:

On June 24th, 2021, Peter Schwartz, MD, PhD, delivered a TREATs talk titled “Paying Research Participants: Avoiding Coercion, Undue Influence, and Exploitation.” His talk takes on the issue of compensating research participants, with an eye towards the role of wages in evaluating their fair treatment. He provides some brief background information on informed consent, participant motivations for taking part in research, and the common justifications for paying participants before examining ideas of coercion, undue influence, and exploitation as they relate to wage determination. The talk inspired questions of allocating fair wages in study designs, paying pediatric participants, and adjusting wages according to a study’s recruitment needs among others.