Castiel L. ¿Cuál es la idea de naturaleza humana para la epidemiología moderna? [What is the idea of human nature for contemporary epidemiology?] Cuadernos Médicos Sociales [Medical-Social Notebooks] ( Rosario , Argentina ) 1994 July; 68:76-86.

Objectives: To analyze new approaches to population research in health, yielding more effective answers than those obtained via current epidemiological research. To clarify the idea of human nature in epidemiology.

Methodology: Analytical and interpretive.

Results: The processes of health and illness in peripheral as well as central countries present a complex picture that current developments in epidemiology fail to disclose. The complex nature of socio-economic and cultural organization adds to the superimposition of new and old diseases, the increase in chronic illnesses, and the persistence of infections. Deep and apparently irreversible social fragmentation heightens the heterogeneity of population groups in society. The concepts of human nature and multiplicity become central to thinking about new approaches to epidemiological research. The author criticizes theoretical and methodological approaches in epidemiology, including those that attempt to escape from biological reductionism or a mechanistic use of science. Nevertheless, it is difficult to escape from thea priori construction of objects, the supposed neutrality of observation, and the belief that knowledge so constructed corresponds to reality. Modifications in the intellectual structure of epidemiology are inevitable if the field is not to become increasingly irrelevant in terms of its social utility.

Conclusions: Human activities imply a high degree of complexity. It is essential not to set aside the challenges that this complexity imposes on science, or to pretend that these challenges do not exist.