Introduction

Over the past 30 years, there has been an increased appreciation for the need to make use of both qualitative and quantitative research methods to understand public health problems. Although frequently employed separately, there has been a growing interest in mixed methods studies that employ both qualitative and quantitative methods—either sequentially or concurrently.

Creswell et al. (2007) define mixed methods research as focused on “collecting, analyzing, and mixing both quantitative and qualitative data in a single study or series of studies. Its central premise is that the use of quantitative and qualitative approaches, in combination, provides a better understanding of research problems than either approach alone.”

Mixed methods deliberately attempt to integrate the two types of data. (Whereas multi-method studies collect both qualitative and quantitative data but analyze them separately and do not attempt to bring the two data sets together to inform one another.)