Statistical Methods for Meta-Analysis

The main purpose of this book is to address the statistical issues for integrating independent studies.

There exist a number of papers and books that discuss the mechanics of collecting, coding, and preparing data for a meta-analysis , and we do not deal with these. Because this book concerns methodology, the content necessarily is statistical, and at times mathematical.

In order to make the material accessible to a wider audience, we have not provided proofs in the text.

Where proofs are given, they are placed as commentary at the end of a chapter.

These can be omitted at the discretion of the reader. Throughout the book we describe computational procedures whenever required.

Many computations can be completed on a hand calculator, whereas some require the use of a standard statistical package such as SAS, SPSS, or BMD.

Readers with experience using a statistical package or who conduct analyses such as multiple regression or analysis of variance should be able to carry out the analyses described with the aid of a statistical package.