Background information for meta-analysis evaluation, Info 00-Info 06
share
Massive numbers of meta-analysis studies are being published. A Google Scholar search of -systematic review and meta-analysis- returns about 1.8 million hits, July 2018. There is a need to have some way to judge the reliability of a positive claim made in a meta-analysis that uses observational studies. Our idea is to examine the quality of the observational studies used in the meta-analysis and to examine the heterogeneity of those studies. We provide background information and examples: a listing of negative studies, a simulation of p-value plots, and three examples of p-value plots.
READ FULL TEXT