Meta-analysis for individual participant data with a continuous exposure: a case study.

OBJECTIVE Methods for meta-analysis of studies with individual participant data and continuous exposure variables are well described in the statistical literature but are not widely used in clinical and epidemiological research. The purpose of this case study is to make the methods more accessible. STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING A two-stage process is demonstrated. Response curves are estimated separately for each study using fractional polynomials. The study-specific curves are then averaged pointwise over all studies at each value of the exposure. The averaging can be implemented using fixed effects or random effects methods. RESULTS The methodology is illustrated using samples of real data with continuous outcome and exposure data and several covariates. The sample data set, segments of Stata and R code, and outputs are provided to enable replication of the results. CONCLUSION These methods and tools can be adapted to other situations, including for time-to-event or categorical outcomes, different ways of modelling exposure-outcome curves, and different strategies for covariate adjustment.

• Publication year

  2021

• Venue

  Journal of Clinical Epidemiology

• Publication date

  2021-09-03

• Fields of study

  Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2021.08.033PMID 34487835PMCID PMC9263279
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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