Meta-analysis Lecture

Abstract

This is one of the lectures (April 2020) given for the Intermediate Epidemiology course.

My take home messages from this lecture were;

1. Always appropriate to perform a systematic review but a meta-analysis may not always be appropriate
2. Random effects model is always to be preferred (will reduce to fixed effect if no between study variation)
3. Biases may also exist in MA and so critical analytical and reading skills remain essential

Professor of Medicine & Epidemiology

I am a tenured (full) professor with a joint appointment in the Departments of Medicine and Epidemiology and Biostatistics where I work as a clinical cardiologist and do research in cardiovascular epidemiology.