tailieunhanh - Ebook Epidemiology, evidence-based medicine and public health (6/E): Part 2
Part 2 book “Epidemiology, evidence-based medicine and public health” has contents: Systematic reviews and meta-analysis, health economics, public health, infectious disease epidemiology and surveillance, health improvement, health care targets, global health, infectious disease epidemiology and surveillance, and other contents. | 12 Systematic reviews and meta-analysis Penny Whiting and Jonathan Sterne University of Bristol Learning objectives In this chapter you will learn to: ✓ define a systematic review, and explain why it provides more reliable evidence than a traditional narrative review; ✓ succinctly describe the steps in conducting a systematic review; ✓ understand the concept of meta-analysis and other means of synthesising results; ✓ explain what is meant by heterogeneity; ✓ critically appraise the conduct of a systematic review. What are systematic reviews and why do we need them? Systematic reviews are studies of studies that offer a systematic approach to reviewing and summarising evidence. They follow a defined structure to identify, evaluate and summarise all available evidence addressing a particular research question. Systematic reviews should use and report clearly-defined methods, in order to avoid the biases associated with, and subjective nature of, traditional narrative reviews. Key characteristics of a systematic review include a set of objectives with pre-defined inclusion criteria, explicit and reproducible methodology, comprehensive searches that aim to identify all relevant studies, assessment of the quality of included studies, and a standardised presentation and synthesis of the characteristics and findings of the included studies. Systematic reviews are an essential tool to allow individuals and policy makers to make evidencebased decisions and to inform the development of clinical guidelines. Systematic reviews fulfil the following key roles: (1) allow researchers to keep up to date with the constantly expanding number of primary studies; (2) critically appraise primary studies addressing the same research question, and investigate possible reasons for conflicting results among them; (3) provide more precise and reliable effect estimates than is Epidemiology, Evidence-based Medicine and Public Health Lecture Notes, Sixth Edition. Yoav Ben-Shlomo, Sara T. .
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