Integrating quantitative and qualitative methods in epidemiology: a pressing need

In recent decades, epidemiology has been the target of strong criticism and questioning to its method, to its discipline status and to its role in public health. Its hold to positivism and to quantitative research methods have skewed its vision of reality, focusing on the physical, biological and environmental health's aspects, and ignoring the cultural, historical, political and economic aspects, that require qualitative methods for their approach. The integration of quantitative and qualitative methods emerges as a threshold mechanism to alleviate the current crisis of epidemiology and as a first step in the process of understanding and inclusion in the epidemiological investigation of all contexts involved in the dynamics of the health - disease.