Methods for estimating between-study variance and overall effect in meta-analysis of odds-ratios

Bakbergenuly, Ilyas, Hoaglin, David and Kulinskaya, Elena (2020) Methods for estimating between-study variance and overall effect in meta-analysis of odds-ratios. Research Synthesis Methods, 11 (3). pp. 426-442. ISSN 1759-2879

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Abstract

In random-effects meta-analysis the between-study variance (τ 2) has a key role in assessing heterogeneity of study-level estimates and combining them to estimate an overall effect. For odds ratios the most common methods suffer from bias in estimating τ 2 and the overall effect and produce confidence intervals with below-nominal coverage. An improved approximation to the moments of Cochran's Q statistic, suggested by Kulinskaya and Dollinger (KD), yields new point and interval estimators of τ 2 and of the overall log-odds-ratio. Another, simpler approach (SSW) uses weights based only on study-level sample sizes to estimate the overall effect. In extensive simulations we compare our proposed estimators with established point and interval estimators for τ 2 and point and interval estimators for the overall log-odds-ratio (including the Hartung-Knapp-Sidik-Jonkman interval). Additional simulations included three estimators based on generalized linear mixed models and the Mantel-Haenszel fixed-effect estimator. Results of our simulations show that no single point estimator of τ 2 can be recommended exclusively, but Mandel-Paule and KD provide better choices for small and large numbers of studies, respectively. The KD estimator provides reliable coverage of τ 2. Inverse-variance-weighted estimators of the overall effect are substantially biased, as are the Mantel-Haenszel odds ratio and the estimators from the generalized linear mixed models. The SSW estimator of the overall effect and a related confidence interval provide reliable point and interval estimation of the overall log-odds-ratio.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	between-study variance,heterogeneity,random effects model,meta-analysis,binary outcome
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Computing Sciences
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Centres > Business and Local Government Data Research Centre (former - to 2023) Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Data Science and Statistics Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Norwich Epidemiology Centre Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Groups > Norwich Epidemiology Centre
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	03 Mar 2020 09:09
Last Modified:	21 Apr 2023 00:25
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/74372
DOI:	10.1002/jrsm.1404

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