Most vaccine researchers today recognize the importance of involving the communities from which they recruit volunteers and establishing mechanisms to take the community’s perspective into account in the design and conduct of vaccine trials.
The Community Advisory Board (CAB) is one such mechanism. CABs are typically composed of nonscientists whose primary responsibility is to provide input to researchers about the conduct of clinical research and to safeguard the rights of trial volunteers.
Every IAVI-supported research center has a CAB, or CAB-like body, that is representative of both the local community and of volunteers enrolled in HIV vaccine-related research.
Some examples of CAB activities include:
- Providing feedback on research and vaccine trial protocols, by reviewing criteria for participation, refining informed consent forms and processes, advising researchers on the recruitment and retention of volunteers and assisting in the translation of informational materials into local languages
- Disseminating information about planned vaccine trials in the community
- Advising investigators on the needs and perspectives of potential trial volunteers
IAVI and its affiliated research centers jointly support a variety of CAB activities, such as seminars and public events to educate people about AIDS vaccine candidates and their development.
We also support meetings of CAB members and CAB liaison officers from different research centers and countries. These meetings promote the exchange of ideas and strategies for improving interactions between researchers and local communities.
In collaboration with partnering research centers we have also developed a CAB toolkit that provides guidance on how to form a CAB, outlines the roles and responsibilities of researchers and CAB members and helps to define—among other things crucial to an effective CAB—the appropriate representation of communities on the board.