Professor Sarah Flicker, who is conducting a major study of Toronto teens’ sexual health, says requiring teens to secure parental consent is not necessarily ethical and can be counterproductive, painting a picture of teen sexual experience that doesn’t represent reality.

Flicker and Adrian Guta, a University of Toronto PhD student, have just published a case study of their experience conducting the Toronto Teen Survey, which will conclude in summer 2008. The survey looks at the accessibility and relevance of sexual health services in the Toronto area.

“The problem is that requiring consent serves to silence young people who most need to have a voice in sexual health research,” Flicker says. “We can’t get any honest-to-goodness data if teens are worried their parents are going to find out what they’ve said, or question them about why they’d even be participating in such a study in the first place.”

Flicker’s case study highlights the need for institutions to reconsider parental consent rules, which usually apply to those under the age of 18 – especially in low-risk research.

“People kept saying, ‘you can’t ask a 13-year-old about sex.’ And certainly not without parental consent. But that’s exactly what we did.”

After gaining ethical consent from York University and the University of Toronto, Flicker decided to consult the experts about how the survey should be designed: she talked to teens, directly.

“We call this a ‘community-based participatory approach,’” Flicker says. “Really it means that research gets done with youth instead of on youth. In our view, there are ethical alternatives to parental consent. We worked closely with youth and the agencies who support them to find the right balance.”

In the case of the Toronto Teen Survey, youth were involved in the design process, and were rigorously trained by research partner Planned Parenthood Toronto to go into various agencies, shelters and after-school programs to conduct interactive surveys with their peers.

”We were able to maintain confidentially and anonymity for participants,” Flicker says. “Our sense is we got a much more honest response as a result and we were able to reach youth that don’t usually get reached."

Flicker’s article, "Ethical Approaches to Adolescent Participation in Sexual Health Research," is published in the January 2008 issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health.

-30-

Media contact:

Melissa Hughes, Media Relations, York University: 416 736 2100 x22097 / mehughes@yorku.ca

York University is the leading interdisciplinary research and teaching university in Canada. York offers a modern, academic experience at the undergraduate and graduate level in Toronto, Canada’s most international city. The third largest university in the country, York is host to a dynamic academic community of 50,000 students and 7,000 faculty and staff, as well as 200,000 alumni worldwide. York’s 11 faculties and 24 research centres conduct ambitious, groundbreaking research that is interdisciplinary, cutting across traditional academic boundaries. This distinctive and collaborative approach is preparing students for the future and bringing fresh insights and solutions to real-world challenges. York University is an autonomous, not-for-profit corporation.