Major text including chapters on the following: defining outcome measures; assessing heterogeneity; using fixed effects methods and random effects models for combining study estimates; publication bias.

Healthcare providers, consumers, researchers and policy makers are inundated with unmanageable amounts of information, including evidence from healthcare research. It has become impossible for all to have the time and resources to find, appraise and interpret this evidence and incorporate it into healthcare decisions. Cochrane Reviews respond to this challenge by identifying, appraising and synthesizing research-based evidence and presenting it in a standardized format, published in The Cochrane Library (www.thecochranelibrary.com). The Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions contains methodological guidance for the preparation and maintenance of Cochrane intervention reviews. Written in a clear and accessible format, it is the essential manual for all those preparing, maintaining and reading Cochrane reviews. Many of the principles and methods described here are appropriate for systematic reviews applied to other types of research and to systematic reviews of interventions undertaken by others. It is hoped therefore that this book will be invaluable to all those who want to understand the role of systematic reviews, critically appraise published reviews or perform reviews themselves.

This title provides step-by-step directions for how to conduct a meta-study, as well as recommendations for tools and standards for the application of this approach.

Designed to provide researchers clear and informative insight into techniques of meta-analysis, the Third Edition of Methods of Meta-Analysis: Correcting Error and Bias in Research Findings is the most comprehensive text on meta-analysis available today. It is the only book that presents a full and usable treatment of the role of study artifacts in distorting study results, as well as methods for correcting results for such biases and errors. Meta-analysis is arguably the most important methodological innovation in the last thirty-five years, due to its immense impact on the development of cumulative knowledge and professional practice. This text, now in its updated Third Edition, has been revised to cover the newest developments in meta-analysis methods, evaluation, correction, and more. This reader-friendly book is the definitive resource on meta-analysis. “This text is the primary source text for psychometric meta-analysis methods.” —Emily E. Tanner-Smith, Vanderbilt University “The key strength of the book is the complete and thorough coverage of psychometric meta-analysis. This technique is not covered in any other meta-analysis text, and is a major contribution to the literature…The meta-analysis field needs to find ways to integrate Hunter and Schmidt’s methods into current meta-analysis practice.” —Terri D. Pigott, Loyola University of Chicago “This is an important text. It is the only book that presents adequate coverage of psychometric meta-analysis. In addition to its use as a textbook, it is an invaluable resource for anyone involved in meta-analytic studies.” —Steven Pulos, University of Northern Colorado

Covering the most important developments in meta-analysis from 1990 to 2004, this text presents new patterns in research findings as well as updated information on existing topics.

The explanation and implementation of statistical methods for the medical researcher or statistician remains an integral part of modern medical research. This book explains the use of experimental and analytical biostatistics systems. Its accessible style allows it to be used by the non-mathematician as a fundamental component of successful research. Since the third edition, there have been many developments in statistical techniques. The fourth edition provides the medical statistician with an accessible guide to these techniques and to reflect the extent of their usage in medical research. The new edition takes a much more comprehensive approach to its subject. There has been a radical reorganization of the text to improve the continuity and cohesion of the presentation and to extend the scope by covering many new ideas now being introduced into the analysis of medical research data. The authors have tried to maintain the modest level of mathematical exposition that characterized the earlier editions, essentially confining the mathematics to the statement of algebraic formulae rather than pursuing mathematical proofs. Received the Highly Commended Certificate in the Public Health Category of the 2002 BMA Books Competition.

Meta-analysis is the application of statistics to combine results from multiple studies and draw appropriate inferences. Its use and importance have exploded over the last 25 years as the need for a robust evidence base has become clear in many scientific areas, including medicine and health, social sciences, education, psychology, ecology, and economics. Recent years have seen an explosion of methods for handling complexities in meta-analysis, including explained and unexplained heterogeneity between studies, publication bias, and sparse data. At the same time, meta-analysis has been extended beyond simple two-group comparisons of continuous and binary outcomes to comparing and ranking the outcomes from multiple groups, to complex observational studies, to assessing heterogeneity of effects, and to survival and multivariate outcomes. Many of these methods are statistically complex and are tailored to specific types of data. Key features Rigorous coverage of the full range of current statistical methodology used in meta-analysis Comprehensive, coherent, and unified overview of the statistical foundations behind meta-analysis Detailed description of the primary methods for both univariate and multivariate data Computer code to reproduce examples in chapters Thorough review of the literature with thousands of references Applications to specific types of biomedical and social science data This book is for a broad audience of graduate students, researchers, and practitioners interested in the theory and application of statistical methods for meta-analysis. It is written at the level of graduate courses in statistics, but will be of interest to and readable for quantitative scientists from a range of disciplines. The book can be used as a graduate level textbook, as a general reference for methods, or as an introduction to specialized topics using state-of-the art methods.