Message-ID: <8dfb9262-17d3-b408-8667-c923e0ffb607@dewey.myzen.co.uk>
Date: 2020-01-09T13:57:44Z
From: Michael Dewey
Subject: [R-meta] Subgroup analysis output using metafor - interpretation
In-Reply-To: <CAF8zgfZfcuDxr_z_B4CYLkCNL+iPsoTsXqnX7=E0MVkVm1Ei3A@mail.gmail.com>
Dear Joao
I hink we may need some clarification before we can answer this.
Comments in-line below
On 09/01/2020 13:36, Joao Afonso wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> I am running a meta-analysis on the prevalence of lameness (binary) in
> British dairy cattle and have used the *metaprop* from the *metafor* package.
I think metaprop comes from meta, not metafor?
> I have set the model to run with random effects, using the DL method, and
> have taken the following approach:
>
> 1. log-transform the data as it is not normally distributed
If it is binary data I would not have expected that anyway so what
exactly did you transform?
> 2. identify outliers using influential analysis (only ran this once)
> 3. remove outliers and rerun the model
In general that seems a bad idea as it removes the most interesting
observations but you may have reasons to doubt the observations.
> 4. deal with remaining heterogeneity with subgroup analysis and
> meta-regression
>
> I have ran the model and am getting what I believe conflicting evidences on
> different output indicators. As an example, after running subgroup analysis
> with one moderator, the output tells me that the moderator explains around
> 50% of the heterogeneity (R^2), and yet the p-value for the test of
> moderators is substantially higher than 0.05 telling me that the pooled
> estimates of the subgroups aren't actually different.
Can you share the output from the analysis to give us a clue?
>
>
>
> I was hoping you could shed a light as to what could justify this happening
> (if it makes sense), and possibly provide some guidance as to what I could
> do to improve the statistical evidences of my study.
>
>
> Many thanks and happy 2020 to everyone
>
--
Michael
http://www.dewey.myzen.co.uk/home.html