Meta-analyses can play a key role in planning new studies. For example, a paper that reports results for a new primary study might include a meta-analysis in the introduction to synthesize prior data and help to place the new study in context. Meta-analyses also play supporting roles in other papers. Many journals encourage researchers to submit systematic reviews and meta-analyses that summarize the body of evidence on a specific question, and this approach is replacing the traditional narrative review.
Where does meta-analysis fit in the research process? Publications Meta analysis is also widely used in basic research to evaluate the evidence in areas as diverse as sociology, social psychology, sex differences, finance and economics, political science, marketing, ecology and genetics, among others. Clinicians and applied researchers in medicine, education, psychology, criminal justice, and a host of other fields use meta-analysis to determine which interventions work, and which ones work best. Pharmaceutical companies use meta-analysis to gain approval for new drugs, with regulatory agencies sometimes requiring a meta-analysis as part of the approval process. Meta-analysis in applied and basic research Meta-analysis, by contrast, applies objective formulas (much as one would apply statistics to data within a single study), and can be used with any number of studies. Narrative reviews had been used for this purpose, but the narrative review is largely subjective (different experts can come to different conclusions) and becomes impossibly difficult when there are more than a few studies involved. Rather, a mechanism is needed to synthesize data across studies. Why perform a meta-analysis?ĭecisions about the utility of an intervention or the validity of a hypothesis cannot be based on the results of a single study, because results typically vary from one study to the next. When the effect varies from one study to the next, meta-analysis may be used to identify the reason for the variation. When the treatment effect (or effect size) is consistent from one study to the next, meta-analysis can be used to identify this common effect. Meta-analysis is the statistical procedure for combining data from multiple studies. Why perform a meta-analysis? What is a meta-analysis?
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