Institut für Medizinische Biometrie
und Statistik (IMBI)

Background:

Systematic reviews are essential for summarizing all available evidence in a reliable manner using predefined methods and criteria. Meta-analysis is the quantitative component of a systematic review that combines estimates from two or more studies to produce a summary treatment effect estimate. When properly conducted, a meta-analysis is typically ranked above individual studies in hierarchies of evidence for health care decisions, as the summary treatment effect estimate obtained from a meta-analysis is generally more precise than the treatment effect estimates obtained from single studies. In recent years, findings from meta-analyses have influenced and changed clinical practice across various medical fields, making meta-analysis one of the most commonly used statistical methods in comparative effectiveness research.

Aim:

This course focuses on the role of meta-analyses in comparative effectiveness research. It includes examples that evaluate healthcare interventions and demonstrate the appropriate use of both standard and advanced statistical methods for meta-analysis.

Objectives: 

The objective of this course is to examine the full process of meta-analysis from the planning stage up to the final report. 

Learning outcomes:

In this course, participants will be enabled to:

• Understand the concept and the main principles of meta-analysis
• Synthesize the data from multiple studies
• Understand and evaluate the assumptions of meta-analysis
• Interpret the results of meta-analysis
• Identify the limitations and potential sources of bias in their data
• Create visualizations and prepare the final report
• Perform a meta-analysis using the R package meta

Teaching strategies:

The course will consist of a mixture of lectures and interactive sessions. The coding parts of the course will primarily use the R package meta for meta-analysis.