Health Policy. 1989 ; 11(1): 79-85.

An introduction to meta-analysis.

Patel MS.

The current rapid pace of social and technological change requires health policy makers to be up to date in their knowledge of health policy research. The "information explosion" has created a need for techniques that synthesize and summarize available information. This paper reviews the use of Meta-Analysis as a data pooling technique in a non-technical manner. Treatment of chronic pain by acupuncture, provided as an example, illustrates the type of information that can be obtained from a Meta-Analysis, that is not conventionally available from individual trials.