Some epistemological problems of epidemiology

The development of epidemiology as applied science has been immersed in intense epistemological and methodological debates. Especially because epidemiology is regarded as an empirical science, which can reduce the number of events related to the health-disease process to a systemic and instrumental rationality, explained from the statistical probability or epidemiological phenomenon; without understanding or carrying out a correct causal interpretation of the actions and the sense of their connection. As a result of this discussion, the epidemiological method has been strengthening its implementation and the quest for certainty, with a degree of uncertainty, but the conceptual developments require not only the diversity of methods and regimes of validity, but the revision of the very nature of what is meant by truth and validation, creating not only new methodologies, but a wider philosophical renewal in the understanding of the epidemiology. It is necessary to be cautious and aware of the limits of epidemiology as a science and give it a status of discipline that requires nourishment from other approaches, and not only of logical positivism. It is intended to make a tour of three aspects that have been critical in the development of epidemiology: logical positivism, causality and the scientific status of the epidemiology.