title: Meta-analysis: current issues in research synthesis.
abstract: Recent concern about the effectiveness of alternative treatments in medicine and health, in education, in psychology, and in the social sciences has led to a consideration of how to combine or synthesize the results of independent studies. Historically, integration of independent results focused on how to combine p-values. More recently the emphasis has been on estimating effect sizes, which in turn has motivated a variety of alternative models depending on the experimental conditions. We here review the development of the field with an emphasis of diagnostics and future research.
authors.affiliation: Department of Statistics, Stanford University, California 94305-4065, USA.
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Olkin
mesh_terms: D015982:Bias; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D004059:Diffusion of Innovation; D015987:Effect Modifier, Epidemiologic; D006801:Humans; D015201:Meta-Analysis as Topic; D015233:Models, Statistical; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D016896:Treatment Outcome