4-5th March 2010
Cardiff, UK

The Statistical Methods Group (SMG) of Cochrane was successful in receiving funding from Cochrane's Opportunities Fund in 2009 to run a two day workshop for Cochrane statisticians who provide support to Collaborative Review Groups or Centres within Cochrane. The course was organised by the Co-Convenors of the SMG: Doug Altman, Joseph Beyene, Steff Lewis, Jo McKenzie, and Georgia Salanti.

The course was taught by several experienced statisticians covering a range of advanced issues in meta-analysis and assessment of bias. In addition, one session was devoted to discussion of issues related to statistical contribution to Collaborative Review Groups. In total, 34 participants attended from 11 countries. The course outline, PDFs, and slidecasts of the presentations are available below.

IMPORTANT: Please contact the presenting author if you would like additional information or prior to reproducing any material from the presentations.

Course outline

DAY ONE

Session 1: Continuous data
Meta-analysis of continuous data: final values, change scores, and ANCOVA [pdf] [slidecast] 
Jo McKenzie (School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Australia)

A few comments on meta-analysis of skewed continuous data [pdf] [slidecast]
Doug Altman (Centre for Statistics in Medicine, University of Oxford, UK)

Ratio of mean (RoM) as an effect measure in meta-analysis of continuous outcomes [pdf] [slidecast]
Joseph Beyene (University of Toronto, and McMaster University, Canada)

(Parallel sessions):
Session 2a: Meta-analysis of time-to-event data [pdf] [slidecast]
Catrin Tudur Smith (Centre for Medical Statistics and Health Evaluation, University of Liverpool, UK)

Session 2b: Other data
Meta-analysis of ordinal data [pdf] [slidecast]
Steff Lewis (Edinburgh MRC Clinical Trials Methodology Hub, University of Edinburgh Medical School, UK)

Meta-analysis of count data [pdf] [slidecast]
Peter Herbison (Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, University of Otago, New Zealand)


Session 3: Missing data [pdf] [slidecast]
Julian Higgins (MRC Biostatistics Unit, Cambridge, UK)


Session 4: Investigating heterogeneity: Subgroup analysis and meta-regression [pdf] [slidecast]
Roger Harbord (Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol, UK)

DAY 2

Session 5: Multiple treatments meta-analysis I [pdf] [slidecast]
Georgia Salanti (Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology, University of Ioannina School of Medicine, Greece)


Session 6: Multiple treatments meta-analysis II [pdf] [slidecast]
Sofia Dias (Community Based Medicine, University of Bristol, UK)


Session 7: Selective outcome reporting [pdf] [slidecast]
Kerry Dwan (Centre for Medical Statistics and Health Evaluation, University of Liverpool, UK)
Doug Altman (Centre for Statistics in Medicine, University of Oxford, UK)


Session 8: Risk of bias assessments: analysis and interpretation [pdf] [slidecast]
Jonathan Sterne (Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol, UK)


Session 9: Statistical contribution to CRGs [pdf] [survey CRG statisticians] [minutes]
Steff Lewis (Edinburgh MRC Clinical Trials Methodology Hub, University of Edinburgh Medical School, UK)

Photos from the course