Re: st: using Freeman-Tukey arcsine transformation with metan command

["Roger B. Newson" <r.newson@imperial.ac.uk>]

I don't know whether Jessica is really meta-analyzing proportions, or 
differences between proportions (which would seem a more appropriate 
parameter for which to use the arcsine transformation, at least to me). 
However, the arcsine was proposed tentatively by Daniels and Kendall 
(1947) as a possible Normalizing and variance-stabilizing transformation 
for Kendall's tau. The -somersd- package (Newson, 2006) is downloadable 
from SSC, and estimates Somers' D and Kendall's tau-a, offering the 
arcsine transformation, and the alternative hyperbolic arctangent or 
Fisher's z transformation, for the purposes of defining confidence 
intervals for both of these parameters. And, of course, a difference 
between proportions is a special case of Somers' D. It should be 
entirely possible to use either of these transformations to meta-analyze 
differences between proportions, using the SSC packages -metan- and/or 
-parmhet- and/or -regpar- and or -parmest- (which has a -metaparm- 
module to do meta-analyses).

I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any further queries.

Best wishes

Roger


References

Daniels, H. E., and M. G. Kendall. 1947. The significance of rank 
correlation where parental correlation exists. Biometrika 34: 197–208.

Newson R. Confidence intervals for rank statistics: Somers' D and 
extensions. The Stata Journal 2006; 6(3): 309-334. Download from
http://www.stata-journal.com/article.html?article=snp15_6

Roger B Newson BSc MSc DPhil
Lecturer in Medical Statistics
Respiratory Epidemiology and Public Health Group
National Heart and Lung Institute
Imperial College London
Royal Brompton Campus
Room 33, Emmanuel Kaye Building
1B Manresa Road
London SW3 6LR
UNITED KINGDOM
Tel: +44 (0)20 7352 8121 ext 3381
Fax: +44 (0)20 7351 8322
Email: r.newson@imperial.ac.uk
Web page: http://www.imperial.ac.uk/nhli/r.newson/
Departmental Web page:
http://www1.imperial.ac.uk/medicine/about/divisions/nhli/respiration/popgenetics/reph/

Opinions expressed are those of the author, not of the institution.

On 02/04/2012 17:38, Jessica Keithlin wrote:
> Hello Stata Community,
>
>
> This is my first post on Statalist so I hope it turns out OK =)
>
>
> I was wondering if anyone has any experience using the Freeman-Tukey arcsine transformation/back-transformation for a meta-analysis? I will be performing a meta-analysis on proportions (as opposed to the typical OR/RR etc) and much of the literature recommends this transformation as a way of dealing with the weighting/variance issue. After the transformation I plan on running a random effects analysis using the metan command (a lot of heterogeneity between my studies). Has anyone used this approach before? Does anyone have recommendations for the coding of the back transformation after the analysis is performed? Any cautions or thoughts on the transformation or alternative approaches I might not have heard of?
>
>
> Any input would be greatly appreciated.
>
>
> Thank you!
>
>
> Jessica Keithlin
> Centre for Public Health and Zoonoses
> University of Guelph
>
>
>
>
>
>
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