Confidence Regions and Intervals for Meta-Analysis Model Parameters

Abstract

This article obtains confidence regions for the heteroscedastic, one-way random effects model’s parameters the heteroscedastic, one-way random effects model. The confidence regions are based on canonical representations of the restricted and profile likelihood functions in terms of independent normal random variables and χ² random variables. These regions provide conservative confidence intervals for the common mean and heterogeneity variance. Mathematical details and the R code are available online as supplementary material.

• Common mean
• Heterogeneity variance
• Interlaboratory comparisons
• Likelihood ratio test
• Random effects model
• Restricted likelihood