You're not necessarily wrong, but the phrase "push a narrative," the scare quotes around "qualitative data," and your initial comment suggest to me that you are not familiar with qualitative research but have a bias or mistrust against it (no judgment, just stating my observation). If you would like to know more about it, this[1] provides a reasonable overview, and if you would like to know much more, I can ask my spouse, who is a qualitative methodologist in medicine at an R1[2], for her recommendations. I can also tell you what I think of this specific paper, but I did not want it to color my initial comment.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualitative_research
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_research_universities_...