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Meta Analysis: A Guide to Calibrating and Combining Statistical Evidence

Elena Kulinskaya, Stephan Morgenthaler, and Robert G. Staudte
Publisher: 
John Wiley
Publication Date: 
2008
Number of Pages: 
260
Format: 
Paperback
Series: 
Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics
Price: 
75.00
ISBN: 
978-0-470-98552-6
Category: 
Monograph
[Reviewed by
Sarah Boslaugh
, on
07/7/2008
]

Meta analysis is a body of statistical techniques which allow researchers to combine results from separate but related studies in order to reach some kind of conclusion about the topic being studied. It’s a staple of evidence-based medicine, for instance, because it allows researchers to synthesize the results of many studies (and the number of publications in medicine has grown far beyond the ability of any individual to keep up) and create sensible recommendations about patient care which are grounded in the research literature.

Conducting a meta analysis is a time-consuming and multi-stage process, often conceptualized as including the following steps: conducting a literature search, abstracting data from the relevant studies, assessing the quality of each study, collective evaluation of the body of literature including assessment of publication bias and study heterogeneity, and quantitative synthesis of the evidence. Meta Analysis by Kulinskaya, Morgenthaler and Straudte is concerned primarily with the last step, although it also grants some attention to the assessment of publication bias. So this book is not a complete guide to conducting a meta analysis, but a handbook for conducting the quantitative synthesis portion of the process.

Meta Analysis is divided into two sections: the first is practical and demonstrates how to synthesize data from studies using different research designs or when different amounts information is available (for instance known vs. unknown precision). Each chapter includes several worked examples using real data which are drawn from various fields, the greatest number from medicine. The second section provides the theoretical underpinnings of the earlier chapters, and is useful but not necessary: a research assistant could execute the techniques presented in the first section without reading the second. Both sections are quite straightforward but do assume some mathematical and statistical sophistication, comparable to completion of an upper-level undergraduate or first-year graduate statistics class which includes the mathematical basis of statistics.

The Preface to Meta Analysis refers to the web site www.wiley.com/go/meta_analysis which is said to contain macros for the R language to conduct meta analyses. This would be a very useful addition to the text but currently redirects to a general web site for the text.

Elena Kulinskaya is the Director of the Statistical Advisory Service, Imperial College, London, UK. Stephan Morgenthaler is Professor in Applied Statistics in the School of Basic Sciences, Institute of Mathematics in Lausanne, Switzerland. Robert G. Staudte is Associate Professor in the School of Statistical Sciences, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.


Sarah Boslaugh (seb5632@bjc.org) is a Performance Review Analyst for BJC HealthCare and an Adjunct Instructor in the Washington University School of Medicine, both in St. Louis, MO. Her books include An Intermediate Guide to SPSS Programming: Using Syntax for Data Management (Sage, 2004), Secondary Data Sources for Public Health: A Practical Guide (Cambridge, 2007), and Statistics in a Nutshell (O'Reilly, forthcoming), and she served as Editor-in-Chief of The Encyclopedia of Epidemiology (Sage, 2008).

Preface

Part I The Methods

1 What can the reader expect from this book?

1.1 A calibration scale for evidence

1.2 The efficacy of glass ionomer versus resin sealants for prevention of caries

1.3 Measures of effect size for two populations

1.4 Summary

2 Independent measurements with known precision

2.1 Evidence for one-sided alternatives

2.2 Evidence for two-sided alternatives

2.3 Examples

3 Independent measurements with unknown precision

3.1 Effects and standardized effects

3.2 Paired comparisons

3.3 Examples

4 Comparing treatment to control

4.1 Equal unknown precision

4.2 Differing unknown precision

4.3 Examples

5 Comparing K treatments

5.1 Methodology

5.2 Examples

6 Evaluating risks

6.1 Methodology

6.2 Examples

7 Comparing risks

7.1 Methodology

7.2 Examples

8 Evaluating Poisson rates

8.1 Methodology

8.2 Example

9 Comparing Poisson rates

9.1 Methodology

9.2 Example

10 Goodness-of-fit testing

10.1 Methodology

10.2 Example

11 Evidence for heterogeneity of effects and transformed effects

11.1 Methodology

11.2 Examples

12 Combining evidence: fixed standardized effects model

12.1 Methodology

12.2 Examples

13 Combining evidence: random standardized effects mode

13.1 Methodology

13.2 Example

14 Meta-regression

14.1 Methodology

14.2 Commonly encountered situations

14.3 Examples

15 Accounting for publication bias

15.1 The downside of publishing

15.2 Examples

Part II The Theory

16 Calibrating evidence in a test

16.1 Evidence for one-sided alternatives

16.2 Random p-value behavior

16.3 Publication bias

16.4 Comparison with a Bayesian calibration

16.5 Summary

17 The basics of variance stabilizing transformations

17.1 Standardizing the sample mean

17.2 Variance stabilizing transformations

17.3 Poisson model example

17.4 Two-sided evidence from one-sided evidence

17.5 Summary

18 One-sample binomial tests

18.1 Variance stabilizing the risk estimator

18.2 Confidence intervals for p

18.3 Relative risk and odds ratio

18.4 Confidence intervals for small risks p

18.5 Summary

19 Two-sample binomial tests

19.1 Evidence for a positive effect

19.2 Confidence intervals for effect sizes

19.3 Estimating the risk difference

19.4 Relative risk and odds ratio

19.5 Recurrent urinary tract infections

19.6 Summary

20 Defining evidence in t-statistics

20.1 Example

20.2 Evidence in the Student t-statistic

20.3 The Key Inferential Function for Student’s model

20.4 Corrected evidence

20.5 A confidence interval for the standardized effect

20.6 Comparing evidence in t- and z-tests

20.7 Summary

21 Two-sample comparisons

21.1 Drop in systolic blood pressure

21.2 Defining the standardized effect

21.3 Evidence in the Welch statistic

21.4 Confidence intervals for d

21.5 Summary

22 Evidence in the chi-squared statistic

22.1 The noncentral chi-squared distribution

22.2 A vst for the noncentral chi-squared statistic

22.3 Simulation studies

22.4 Choosing the sample size

22.5 Evidence for l > l0

22.6 Summary

23 Evidence in F-tests

23.1 Variance stabilizing transformations for the noncentral F

23.2 The evidence distribution

23.3 The Key Inferential Function

23.4 The random effects model

23.5 Summary

24 Evidence in Cochran’s Q for heterogeneity of effects

24.1 Cochran’s Q: the fixed effects model

24.2 Simulation studies

24.3 Cochran’s Q: the random effects model

24.4 Summary

25 Combining evidence from K studies

25.1 Background and preliminary steps

25.2 Fixed standardized effects

25.3 Random transformed effects

25.4 Example: drop in systolic blood pressure

25.5 Summary

26 Correcting for publication bias

26.1 Publication bias

26.2 The truncated normal distribution

26.3 Bias correction based on censoring

26.4 Summary

27 Large-sample properties of variance stabilizing transformations

27.1 Existence of the variance stabilizing transformation

27.2 Tests and effect sizes

27.3 Power and efficiency

27.4 Summary

References

Index