meta-analysis

Term: meta-nalysis

Literally meaning: “breaking up or study after”

Origin: Anc Greek

μετά-/meta-(=compining form meaning after, next to, behind)

ανάλυσις/analysis(=to breaking up of any whole into its parts)>verb αναλύω/analeo >ανά- /ana-(= combining form meaning upon, throughout) + λύω/leo(to break up, to solve)

Coined/History

The first meta-analysis was performed in 1904 by  Karl Pearson when he was asked by the British government to review evidence on the effects of a vaccine against typhoid.  The term was coined in 1976 by American statistician Gene Glass in his presidential address to the American Educational Research Association (AERA) : “ … the analysis of the results of statistical analysis for the purpose of drawing general conclusions”.  One of the first  meta-analysis published was on the effect of class size on educational achievement (Glass and Smith,  1979).

Source:

 Simpson, R; Pearson, K (1904). "Report On Certain Enteric Fever Inoculation Statistics". The British Medical Journal(BMJ     Publishing Group) 2 (2288): 1243–1246. JSTOR 20282622. PMC 2355479. PMID 20761760.

 Glass G. V (1976). "Primary, secondary, and meta-analysis of research". Educational Researcher 5: 3–8.

Definition

Μετα-analysis is the  statistical methods of combining evidence from different studies in order to obtain a quantitative estimate of the overall effect of a particular innervation or treatment.   In other words meta-analysis is the systematic approach for integrating the outcomes of a set of studies.