I think one of the common unexpected issues that comes up when one is doing intervention research or high risk research is that children, parents, adults may disclose information that indicates that they’re in jeopardy or that they may harm someone else. And the research was not really designed for that particular problem, or in some descriptive research, was not even geared toward some kind of an intervention. But whenever you’re working with high risk populations, there’s always that challenge that may come up.

And so I’ve advised new experimenters as well as seasoned scientists to always think in advance about what the potential disclosure issues might be. We always prioritize confidentiality. However, there are instances where we face what has been called the scientist-citizen dilemma, which is that there may be something that, as a human being, requires our intervention even though as a scientist, it’s not part of the study.

For example, if you’re studying adolescent risk and you’re studying drug use, what happens if you find out that they’re using a very dangerous drug and that they’ve reported that they may be having an overdose. What are you going to do? That’s a logical problem to anticipate.

So one of the things I advise is an eight step process, but what you do is first given the nature of your research and the population, identify what the confidentiality and disclosures issues are. Then figure out whether or not you’re equipped to really evaluate whether or not there’s a problem. Then find out what the referral and service options are in the community, in the setting that you’re at.

Also investigate legal issues because it may be, in some states, scientists are mandated abuse reporters, in some states you’re working with school teachers or physicians who are mandated reporters. After that, discuss with the site that you’re working on what referral opportunities there are. And then put it all together, figure out what your disclosure policy is going to be, train your staff to do it and then make sure it’s in the informed consent form.