Meta-analysis: methodological considerations

by Harri Hemilä

These texts are based on Hemilä (2006)
These documents have up to date links to documents that are available via the net.

Harri Hemilä
Department of Public Health
University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
harri.hemila@helsinki.fi

Home: http://www.mv.helsinki.fi/home/hemila

This file: http://www.mv.helsinki.fi/home/hemila/metaanalysis

Version May 29, 2012

Because meta-analysis has been extensively used as a method of analyzing the potential effect of vitamin C on the common cold, the opportunities provided by the method as well as some of its limitations are considered.

Texts dealing with the meta-analyses on vitamin C and the common cold are listed on another page.

These texts deal with meta-analysis in general:

The purpose of meta-analysis

Some examples of problems with meta-analysis

Quality of studies included

Cumulative meta-analysis

Publication bias

Meta-analysis versus large single trials

The relevance of the biology of the topic under consideration

Non-comparability of the vitamin C trials

Copyright: © 2006-2009 Harri Hemilä. This text is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.