The following East Midlands RSS Local Group seminar will take place on
Thursday 20th May 2004 at 16:30 (Tea at 16:00) in Room G20 Department
of Health Sciences (formerly Epidemiology & Public Health),
University of Leicester, 22-28 Princess Road West, Leicester, U.K.
All very welcome - map and directions can be found at
http://www.prw.le.ac.uk/epidemio/direct/ - the department
is 5-10 minutes walk from Leicester railway station.
If people planning to attend could email or phone Joy Fox
on 0116 252 3206 [log in to unmask] we would be very grateful.
>
IDENTIFYING AND RECONCILING INCONSISTENT FINDINGS IN META-ANALYSIS
Dr Julian Higgins (MRC Biostatistics Unit, Cambridge)
Summary:
Differences among studies brought together for a meta-analysis create
some of the main difficulties in drawing conclusions from a systematic
review. This talk will focus on differences in the quantative findings
of different studies, providing a critical overview of current practice
and a discussion of some recent developments. Three main areas will be
addressed: identifying inconsistencies through statistical tests and
other methods; incorporating variation in effects through random effects
models; and explaining variation through statistical modelling
(meta-regression). Several of the methods typically applied are argued
to be unhelpful, misleading or incorrect, and suggestions for overcoming
these limitations will be presented.
>
Keith R. Abrams
Professor of Medical Statistics
Centre for Biostatistics & Genetic Epidemiology
Department of Health Sciences
University of Leicester
22-28 Princess Road West
Leicester, LE1 6TP, U.K.
Tel +44 (0)116 252 3217
FAX +44 (0)116 252 3272
e-mail [log in to unmask]
http://www.hs.le.ac.uk/
|