The article focuses on the difficulties the epidemiological instrument faces when dealing wih questions posed by contemporary health problems, in which the concept of stress finds broad diffusion. Thus there is a discussion about the theoretical-concepual framework of the theory of stress and its developments. Besides, the text points out the limitation of the method and of the available epidemiological models when they talk about: 1) manifestations whose predicability cannot be delimited; 2) phenomena placed in different hierarchic levels. In such cases, the theorization underlying the notion of risk, used to explain sickliness at the individual level proves to be insufficient. The complexity of the health-illness process demands another epistemological paradigm which allows the subject of the epidemiological research develop other ways of demarcating and understanding its object.
Stress; epidemiological research; health-illness process