Further, some scholarly journals will not publish studies involving human subjects without an assurance that human subjects committee approval was obtained. Investigators requesting approval for what was once considered non-research that could have been reviewed prior to its commencement face the possibility that the Committee will disapprove their application. It is therefore in the investigator's best interest to consider carefully the likelihood that he or she will want to use the data for research purposes in the future, and to err on the side of inclusion and seek human subjects approval prior to commencing the work. To qualify for this category the data, documents, or specimens must already be in existence before the researcher applies for approval to access it. If some, or all, of the data are going to be collected by the researcher or another party after the researcher applies for approval to access it, it is NOT existing data and does not qualify for this category.
Risk can be social or psychological as well as physical.
Even if confidentiality is not involved, psychological damage may occur. For instance, suppose a psychologist wants to induce stress on his subjects to measure resultant changes. To do so, he gives them insoluble problems and psychometric tests which he then announces reveal various mental and emotional deficiencies. The HSC realizes that risks are an inevitable and accepted part of life, but the Committee's task is to ascertain whether the proposed research increases risks beyond this normal level. Such risk-reducing options would be suggested to the investigator.