Kendall, C.

This paper discusses the use of qualitative and quantitative methods to eliminate systematic sources of error in quantitative measurement of hygiene behaviours in the Health Behaviour Intervention project in Lima, Peru. The authors argue that the combination of methodologies can give public health better data for the design and implementation of interventions to prevent disease. In relation to qualitative methods, the paper discusses the reliability of structured observation data for health intervention studies.

In an area of El Salvador where dengue fever was endemic four anthropologists, one entomologist and one epidemiologist collected data from women for one week. Participants were given nine different insects in mounted boxes which included malarial mosquitos and were then asked to group insects with common characteristics. The results were processed on computer using a package called (ANTHROPAC).