IHR Seminar: Enhancing the portability of public health intervention review evidence for localised decision-making

This lecture will focus on the generalisability of meta-analytic evidence and the types of knowledge claims that can be made from meta-analyses of public health interventions.

It begins through questioning the claims made by some meta-analysts that the synthesis of effect sizes from interventions carried out across different areas is enough to warrant claims around the generalisability of this evidence. It will explore some of the most frequently encountered ways in which meta-analysts explore the differential impacts of the intervention across settings in investigating generalisability, and will highlight the ways in which current practice is inadequate.

The lecture intends to present a framework for better use of existing configurative approaches in meta-analysis, and to demonstrate how a more nuanced treatment of context in reviews of public health interventions can be achieved through greater engagement with existing large sources of secondary data.