# Is it sensible to consider meta-analysis the strongest level of evidence for or against an intervention?

**URL:** <https://discourse.datamethods.org/t/is-it-sensible-to-consider-meta-analysis-the-strongest-level-of-evidence-for-or-against-an-intervention/248>\
**Category:** meta-analysis\
**Created:** [July 26, 2018, 3:11pm UTC](https://discourse.datamethods.org/t/is-it-sensible-to-consider-meta-analysis-the-strongest-level-of-evidence-for-or-against-an-intervention/248 "2018-07-26T15:11:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
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**Author:** ![PaulBrownPhD](https://discourse.datamethods.org/user_avatar/discourse.datamethods.org/paulbrownphd/32/32_2.png) [@PaulBrownPhD](https://discourse.datamethods.org/u/PaulBrownPhD)\
**Post date:** [May 1, 2019, 1:24pm UTC](https://discourse.datamethods.org/t/is-it-sensible-to-consider-meta-analysis-the-strongest-level-of-evidence-for-or-against-an-intervention/248/17 "2019-05-01T13:24:40Z")

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> [@R\_cubed](#):
>
> I haven’t seen this yet, but is anyone familiar with placing meta-analysis in a decision theoretic context, in terms of using Meta-analysis to produce informative priors for a later Bayesian experiment?

i was reading a bayes re-analysis yesterday that did this, it might not be the best example tho: [bayes re-analysis, ECMO RCT](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2709620). They say:

> “data-derived prior distributions were developed based on relevant studies18-20 from a meta-analysis of ECMO for ARDS.21 The treatment effects in these previous studies were combined with the observed data from this trial in a Bayesian hierarchical random-effects model (that itself used minimally informative priors)”

they make too much of the convention of having artificial priors that are on the spectrum: enthusiastic - sceptical (shown in table 1). But i thinks this gets at the point you mention ie

> [@R\_cubed](#):
>
> I think instead of looking at meta-analysis as “the answer”, it is better to look at it as “what is the range of scientifically justifiable difference of opinion?”

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