[Statlist] Séminaires de Statistique - Université de Neuchâtel

[KONDYLIS Atanassios]

Séminaires de Statistique 

Vendredi 10-06-2005 - 11h 00 
Groupe de Statistique, Espace de l'Europe 4, Neuchâtel

Prof. Ingram Olkin
Stanford University, USA


META-ANALYSIS: HISTORY AND STATISTICAL ISSUES FOR COMBINING THE RESULTS OF INDEPENDENT STUDIES

Meta-analysis enables researchers to synthesize the results of independent studies so that the combined weight 
of evidence can be considered and applied.  Increasingly meta-analysis is being used in medicine and other health 
sciences, in the behavioral and educational fields to augment traditional methods of narrative research by systematically 
aggregating and quantifying research literature.

Meta-analysis requires several steps prior to statistical analysis: formulation of the problem, liteature search, coding and 
evaluation of the literature, after which one can address the statistical issues.

We here review some of the history of meta-analysis and discuss some of the problematic issues such as various forms 
of bias that may exist.  The statistical techniques that have been used are nonparametric methods, combining proportions, 
the use of different metrics, and combining effect sizes from continuous data.