Dr. Richard A. Cash is presently the Principal Investigator of a NIH training grant on "Ethical Issues in International Health Research". This program explores differences between and within countries with regard to health research ethics and conducts training workshops. In addition to workshops conducted at the HSPH, workshops are planned for Mexico, South Africa, and Kerala in South India. Informed consent, confidentiality, conflict of interest, investigator responsibilities to the study population, research in resource poor environments, and the development of ethical review committees are just some of the subjects covered in the different workshops.
Dr. Cash was previously the Principal Investigator of the Applied Diarrheal Disease Research (ADDR) Project, a program which assisted developing country scientists to develop their research abilities by conducting their own research projects. Over 150 studies, involving more than 350 investigators were funded in twelve countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America leading to over 275 publications. The research priorities of the program focused on the following areas: behavioral studies of care takers and providers; foods and fluids; prevention of diarrhea; persistent and evasive diarrhea; and acute respiratory infection and nutrition. The ADDR Project has been replaced by the Applied Research for Child Health (ARCH) Project which has further expanded its work. A number of studies were pursued by ADDR and now ARCH to explore the process by which researchers are trained and how research results are translated into policy and program implementation.
A study is continuing on the role of development activities on the reemergence of previously controlled infectious diseases and the emergence of newly described infectious diseases.