Cohort participants' understanding of broad consent for future use of data and samples. A cognitive interview study of the University of California at Berkeley's template informed consent form for biomedical research.

Informed consent (IC) is key to generating and maintaining research participants' trust and upholding the ethical principle of respect for persons. Broad consent for future use, wherein researchers ask participants for their permission to share participant-level data and samples collected within the study for purposes loosely related to the study objectives, is central to enabling data and sample reuse. Ensuring that participants understand broad consent-related language is key to maintaining their trust in the study itself and in public health research more generally. To ensure research projects' adherence to core ethical principles, many research centres, ethics review committees (ERCs), and journals ask that studies use templates for informed consent and have different levels of comfort with investigators' deviation from the template language.