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Legal Issues in Social Work Research

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Legal Issues in Social Work Practice and Research

Abstract

Many social workers are involved in the conduct of research. This chapter provides a review of the legal obligations that are most likely to arise in the context of conducting social work research. Because legal and ethical obligations are often interwoven, the chapter also discusses related ethical issues.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Nuremberg Code was promulgated in 1947 by a military tribunal as part of its final judgment against 15 Nazi physicians who were found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity due to their conduct of medical experiments on individuals without their consent (Annas, 1992). The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights , which is legally binding on more than 160 nations that have ratified it, guarantees the right to individuals to be free from nonconsensual medical experimentation by any entity.

  2. 2.

    In some cases, individuals’ identities may be deductively disclosed, such as in the case of small geographic areas, specific small populations, and linked databases (National Institutes of Health, 2003b). As an example, a social worker investigating community poverty levels might wish to link information from several databases to better understand not only whether poverty exists but its implications for access to needed services. Although likely not relevant to most social work research, identification of specific individuals is theoretically possible in the context of genetic research that utilizes archived tissue samples, since DNA information is specific to an individual.

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. School of Medicine, Department of Bioethics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA

      Sana Loue

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    1. Sana Loue
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    Loue, S. (2018). Legal Issues in Social Work Research. In: Legal Issues in Social Work Practice and Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77414-5_5

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    • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77414-5_5

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