Paying the Right Amount to Challenge Trial Participants – We Need to Use Behavioral Science Insights to Sell What’s Right

Sometimes doing what’s right depends on anticipating how people will react when you do the right thing. Consider two aspects of challenge trial payments discussed by Lynch and colleagues (2021). The first is the importance of promoting public trust in challenge trial payments. Lynch and colleagues point out that even if there is not any actual ethical impropriety in challenge trial payments, the public might worry that payments are taking advantage of vulnerable research participants, either by paying them too much or too little. Such public concerns could negatively affect the ability to carry out such trials. Lynch and colleagues suggest that their framework for ethical payment in research can help justify payment amounts to the public. We agree with their framework, but believe that the framework on its own will not necessarily be enough to counter public perceptions around over or under payment.