Resumo

ALVAREZ HERNANDEZ, Gerardo. Limitaciones metodológicas de la epidemiología moderna y una alternativa para superarlas: la epidemiología sociocultural. Región y sociedad [online]. 2008, vol.20, n.spe2, pp.51-75. ISSN 2448-4849.

This is a review paper aimed at discussing some methodological flaws in modern epidemiology, particularly those relevant to observational studies. Our purpose is to briefly point out what would be the contributions from an epidemiology with sociocultural roots, meaning by this the need to link biological facts to social, ecological and cultural elements, always from a perspective that alludes to a necessary expansion of epistemological and methodological aspects of modern epidemiology. To this end, in this paper we review some of the conceptual and methodological foundations of modern epidemiology pointing out limitations and scopes that have been suggested both within the discipline and from the social sciences. The term "modern epidemiology" will be used interchangeably with "traditional epidemiology", because what primarily matters is addressing the concepts and methods used in epidemiology from the 20th century.

Palavras-chave : limitations of epidemiology; epistemology and methodology of epidemiology; sociocultural epidemiology.