REACH researcher Roberto Abadie recently led a new publication on establishing trust among people who inject drugs when researching HIV and hepatitis C. The paper was published in PLoS ONE in December of 2018 and focuses on how trust forms between researchers and participants.
Findings suggest that although research participants in this context face a number of barriers to developing research-related trust, there are approaches that work well. They suggest using peer-based recruitment methods, using research staff who are knowledgeable about the community and are culturally sensitive to their needs, and for researchers to maintain a long-term presence in the community.