Professor Julian Higgins explains why he believes the systematic review and meta-analysis methods described in many highly cited papers are routinely misunderstood or misused. Julian Higgins is Professor of Evidence Synthesis at the Bristol Evidence Synthesis, Appraisal and Modelling (BEAM) Centre at the University of Bristol. His research has focussed on the methodology of systematic review and meta-analysis and he has been senior editor of the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions since 2003. He is an NIHR Senior Investigator and currently co-directs the NIHR Bristol Evidence Synthesis Group.
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses have become influential and popular. Papers describing aspects of the systematic review and meta-analysis toolkit have become some of the most highly cited papers. I will review those that appear at the top of the most-cited list and explain why I believe the methods described are routinely misunderstood or misused. These include a test for asymmetry in a funnel plot, the I-squared statistic for measuring inconsistency across studies, the random-effects meta-analysis model and the PRIMSA reporting guideline.
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Professor Julian Higgins explains why he believes the systematic review and meta-analysis methods described in many highly cited papers are routinely misunderstood or misused. Julian Higgins is Professor of Evidence Synthesis at the Bristol Evidence Synthesis, Appraisal and Modelling (BEAM) Centre at the University of Bristol. His research has focussed on the methodology of systematic review and meta-analysis and he has been senior editor of the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions since 2003. He is an NIHR Senior Investigator and currently co-directs the NIHR Bristol Evidence Synthesis Group.
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses have become influential and popular. Papers describing aspects of the systematic review and meta-analysis toolkit have become some of the most highly cited papers. I will review those that appear at the top of the most-cited list and explain why I believe the methods described are routinely misunderstood or misused. These include a test for asymmetry in a funnel plot, the I-squared statistic for measuring inconsistency across studies, the random-effects meta-analysis model and the PRIMSA reporting guideline.
Systematic reviews: the past the present and the future
Evidence-Based Health Care
51 minutes
6 years ago
Systematic reviews: the past the present and the future
Making decisions and choices about health and social care need access to high-quality evidence from research. Systematic reviews provide this by both highlighting the quality of existing studies and by themselves providing a high-quality summary. Mike Clarke and Iain Chalmers [1], Iain Chalmers (James Lind Library and Fellow of CEBM), Carl Heneghan ( Professor of EBM and Director CEBM) and Kamal Mahtani (Associate Professor and Director of the MSc in Systematic Reviews) talk about the history and development of systematic reviews, their current delivery and the shortcomings in current review production and the future directions of systematic reviews, including the launch of CEBM's Evidence Synthesis Toolkit.
This talk was held as part of the Practice of Evidence-Based Health Care course which is part of the Evidence-Based Health Care Programme.
[1] Clarke M, Chalmers I Reflections on the history of systematic reviews. BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine 2018;23:121-122.
Evidence-Based Health Care
Professor Julian Higgins explains why he believes the systematic review and meta-analysis methods described in many highly cited papers are routinely misunderstood or misused. Julian Higgins is Professor of Evidence Synthesis at the Bristol Evidence Synthesis, Appraisal and Modelling (BEAM) Centre at the University of Bristol. His research has focussed on the methodology of systematic review and meta-analysis and he has been senior editor of the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions since 2003. He is an NIHR Senior Investigator and currently co-directs the NIHR Bristol Evidence Synthesis Group.
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses have become influential and popular. Papers describing aspects of the systematic review and meta-analysis toolkit have become some of the most highly cited papers. I will review those that appear at the top of the most-cited list and explain why I believe the methods described are routinely misunderstood or misused. These include a test for asymmetry in a funnel plot, the I-squared statistic for measuring inconsistency across studies, the random-effects meta-analysis model and the PRIMSA reporting guideline.
