The Foundation will fund three new research projects from the Fall 2025 cycle of its Making a Difference in Real-World Bioethics Dilemmas grant program.
The Making a Difference program funds bioethics research projects that seek to resolve current challenges in health care, policy, and research. Grants are awarded twice yearly. Since 2013, the Foundation has funded more than 100 Making a Difference grants supporting bioethics research on a wide array of issues including aid-in-dying, deception in medical contexts, discrimination in health care, and responses to the opioid epidemic, among others.
Expanding equitable research participation: Development of practice guidelines for prison and jail health research policies
Justin Berk, MD (Rhode Island Hospital)
Abstract: Despite facing high rates of chronic and communicable diseases, incarcerated people are often excluded from health research. To address historical research abuse, federal regulations seek to provide protections for incarcerated participants, yet they lack pragmatic details. Accordingly, many prisons and jails develop individual policies, which vary in approach to participant protection and research access. To develop best practices for carceral research policies, this project aims to combine consensus-building with normative ethical analysis, seeking to balance research protections and access.
Maximizing Justice, Beneficence, & Nonmaleficence in Narratives of Mental Health Disparities
Matthew Lebowitz, PhD (Columbia University)
Abstract: LGBTQ+ people face disproportionate rates of depression and suicide, and public messages often highlight these disparities to raise awareness. While such messages may promote justice by focusing on the needs of those facing disproportionate health burdens, they could cause harm if they reinforce stigma or discourage help-seeking. This project plans to study how LGBTQ+ people and clinicians respond to messages about mental health disparities affecting the LGBTQ+ population and aims to yield ethical guidance to ensure that communications promote equity and wellbeing while avoiding unintended harms.
The Future of Bioethics
Sandra Soo-Jin Lee, PhD (Columbia University)
Abstract: This project seeks to explore how shifting federal priorities are reshaping bioethics. Through document analysis, surveys, and interviews, it aims to examine these changes and their actual and anticipated impacts on the field. Prof. Lee and colleagues aim to produce a map of defunded or deprioritized domains and offer empirically grounded insights into areas of vulnerability and adaptation for ensuring ethical oversight, scholarship, and training. Through workshops with bioethics leaders, practitioners, scholars, and trainees, the research team seeks to co-create strategies to fortify bioethics in a context of significant change.
