Published in

MDPI, Entropy, 4(25), p. 691, 2023

DOI: 10.3390/e25040691

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A Note on Cherry-Picking in Meta-Analyses

Journal article published in 2023 by Daisuke Yoneoka ORCID, Bastian Rieck ORCID
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

We study selection bias in meta-analyses by assuming the presence of researchers (meta-analysts) who intentionally or unintentionally cherry-pick a subset of studies by defining arbitrary inclusion and/or exclusion criteria that will lead to their desired results. When the number of studies is sufficiently large, we theoretically show that a meta-analysts might falsely obtain (non)significant overall treatment effects, regardless of the actual effectiveness of a treatment. We analyze all theoretical findings based on extensive simulation experiments and practical clinical examples. Numerical evaluations demonstrate that the standard method for meta-analyses has the potential to be cherry-picked.