How vague is vague? How informative is informative? Reference analysis for Bayesian meta-analysis.

ABSTRACT: Meta-analysis provides important insights for evidence-based medicine by synthesizing evidence from multiple studies which address the same research question. Within the Bayesian framework, meta-analysis is frequently expressed by a Bayesian normal-normal hierarchical model (NNHM). Recently, several publications have discussed the choice of the prior distribution for the between-study heterogeneity in the Bayesian NNHM and used several "vague" priors. However, no approach exists to quantify the informativeness of such priors, and thus, we develop a principled reference analysis framework for the Bayesian NNHM acting at the posterior level. The posterior reference analysis (post-RA) is based on two posterior benchmarks: one induced by the improper reference prior, which is minimally informa

SUBMITTER: Ott M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8453582 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature