EPID 6720 - SYSTEMATIC REV & META-ANALYSIS

[3 Credits]

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses are effective methods for evidence-based clinical and public health practice. This course will provide an introduction to the systematic review process, discuss the strengths and limitations of the method, and demonstrate how to actually perform a systematic review and meta-analysis in public health and clinical medicine. Concepts introduced and illustrated through case studies of public health and medical issues. Specific topics to be covered include formulation of the review question, searching the literature, quality assessment of studies, data extraction, meta-analytic methods, assessment of heterogeneity and report writing. The course will also cover statistical issues such as selection of statistical models for meta-analysis, practical examples of fixed and random effects models, methods to evaluate heterogeneity and publication bias. STATA statistical software will be used to perform meta-analysis during the computer lab, along with tutorials on how to effectively use tools such as PubMed for conducting reviews.