Toward a Culture-Informed Epidemiology: Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Research in Transcultural Contexts

This article presents a model for research that aims to address challenges in transcultural psychiatric epidemiology. The model involves eclectic application of quantitative and qualitative techniques, namely: focus groups, in-depth interviews, snowball sampling and population surveys. The qualitative methods help provide information on the context of symptoms, illness experience and disease. These methods provide the background information needed to shape research questions, to modify instruments for local situations, and to interpret collected epidemiological data. Examples are provided.