Editors: Julian PT Higgins, Jonathan J Deeks and Douglas G Altman on behalf of the Cochrane Statistical Methods Group.
This chapter should be cited as: Higgins JPT, Deeks JJ, Altman DG (editors). Chapter 16: Special topics in statistics. In: Higgins JPT, Green S (editors), Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions Version 5.1.0 (updated March 2011). The Cochrane Collaboration, 2011. Available from www.handbook.cochrane.org.
Contributing authors: Doug Altman, Deborah Ashby, Ralf Bender, Catey Bunce, Marion Campbell, Mike Clarke, Jon Deeks, Simon Gates, Julian Higgins, Nathan Pace and Simon Thompson.
Acknowledgements: We particularly thank Joseph Beyene, Peter Gøtzsche, Steff Lewis, Georgia Salanti, Stephen Senn and Ian White for helpful comments on earlier drafts. For details of the Cochrane Statistical Methods Group, see Chapter 9 (Box 9.8.a).