1. Systematic reviews, meta analyses, and cost effectiveness studies
Paul K. Crane, MD MPH
General Internal Medicine
Harborview Medical Center

2. Types of review articles
Expert opinion
Generally commissioned or specifically requested
Based on literature and experience in the field
Systematic reviews
Can be done be anyone
Avoid biases of experts; seeks out all data
Economics papers – cost effectiveness studies
Specifically relate to money

3. Systematic reviews
“systematic” part is the science part – the search strategy and specific criteria are specified, so it could be replicated
Work best (as we’ll see) with a specific question, the more specific the better
A great idea if you have a pre-specified niche and you know what that is
Downside: tedium. Make sure it’s an area you want to spend time with

4. Meta-analysis
Mathematical technique for combining data from multiple studies
Applied to systematic reviews if combining data is used; systematic reviews need have no numerical results, though

5. Economics papers Cost-effectiveness studies and their ilk
Develop an economic model of a population with various outcomes and the costs of each of those outcomes
Thought experiment: what would outcomes be if we did an intervention instead
Often expressed as cost per life year saved, or cost per QALY
Models only as good as primary data

6. General points on these designs
Require little funding
Great way to get published in an area as a junior person and obtain a reputation
Great way to systematically read the literature, but there’s a lot of garbage; need to consider study quality
Those expert review articles aren’t so bad after all!