Counting apples as oranges: epidemiology and ethnography in adolescent substance abuse treatment

In spite of a history of collaboration between epidemiology and qualitative research, the mix of these two perspectives is not well developed in the substance use field. Part of the reason for the difficult match is that qualitative research often adds issues of context and meaning that complicate the epidemiological data of interest. In the substance use field, epidemiological indicators tend to focus on a single drug, but the context typically involves persons who use multiple illicit and licit substances in a variety of ways that change over time. In this article, the author describes four adolescents in an outpatient substance abuse treatment center to provide context and insight into the lives behind the epidemiological indicators. Studying a site of epidemiological data collection ethnographically is yet another way to build collaboration between epidemiology and qualitative research.