Editorial

Abstract

This issue of Saúde e Sociedade presents such specific (and rich) content that it is worth highlighting the significant methodological contribution that the works that involve the vast field of collective health make to social research, which deals with subjectivity, values, ideologies, beliefs and representations. This generic characteristic of the field of public/ collective health repeats itself once again in this issue. In fact, some features that characterize the abovementioned methodological dimension appear prominently in the present issue: the multi-and crossdisciplinary approach, the question of the degree of commitment (or distance) of the epistemic subject in relation to his/her object of analysis, the diversity of foci and of methodological instruments. All these factors enable the epistemic subject to have a progressive control of such an elusive object. The area of collective health has a strange vocation: its capacity to contribute to the development of the epistemology of the social and human sciences in general... It is a pity that collective health journals are mainly read, as expected, by professionals, researchers and technicians in the areas of collective health...