Ethical review of AI health research: An exploratory qualitative study on experiences and challenges of research ethics committees in Uganda

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in health research of both communicable and non-communicable diseases has shown an improvement in diagnosis, reduced researchers’ workload, and facilitated real-time data analysis. However, several ethical concerns on public trust, privacy, accountability and fairness regarding access to AI have been pointed out to expose the users of AI to harm. Whereas AI technologies continue to grow rapidly in health research, there is limited knowledge on research ethics committees’ (REC) current practices and challenges experienced when reviewing AI health research in low resource settings like Uganda. This study examined the current practices and challenges experienced by ethics committees during the review of AI health research. We adopted a qualitative exploratory approach, where in-depth interviews were conducted with 12 REC members and 6 REC administrators between May and September 2024. A thematic approach was used to analyze the results. Three themes merged from this data including current practices of RECs, challenges experienced by REC members when reviewing AI health research proposals, and the proposed solutions to the mentioned challenges. Of interest, respondents expressed concerns of limited training and expertise in field of AI, inadequate guiding and reference tools, and unreasonable demands from researchers. Therefore, it is essential to build capacity for REC members and develop comprehensive guidelines, and standard operating procedures for efficient and constructive feedback to researchers.