Some general points in estimating heterogeneity variance with the DerSimonian-Laird estimator

作者：Dankmar Böhning · 发表于：Biostatistics · 年份：2002 · DOI：10.1093/biostatistics/3.4.445 · 被引用次数：121 · 研究领域：Economic and Environmental Valuation、Statistical Methods and Bayesian Inference、Advanced Statistical Methods and Models

In this paper we consider estimating heterogeneity variance with the DerSimonian-Laird (DSL) estimator as typically used in meta-analysis. In its general form the DSL estimator requires inverse population-averaged study-specific variances as weights, in which case the estimator is unbiased. It has become common practice, however, to use estimates of the study-specific variances instead of their population-averaged versions. This can lead to considerable bias. Simulations illustrate these findings.