Meta-analysis allows researchers to combine results of several studies into a unified analysis that provides an overall estimate of the effect of interest and to quantify the uncertainty of that estimate. Stata has some of the best statistical tools available for doing meta-analysis. The unusual thing about these tools is that none of them are part of official Stata. They are all created by and documented by experts in the broader research community who also happen to be proficient Stata developers.
Editors Tom Palmer and Jonathan Sterne show how each of the articles in this collection relates to others and how each fits in the overall literature of meta-analysis. For the first edition, Sterne convinced over half the authors to update their software and articles for the collection. In this new edition, Palmer and Sterne have substantially expanded the scope of the collection to cover in more depth many contemporary advances that will help keep the reader up to date.