Alternative measures of between‐study heterogeneity in meta‐analysis: Reducing the impact of outlying studies

Meta-analysis has become a widely used tool to combine results from independent studies. The collected studies are homogeneous if they share a common underlying true effect size; otherwise, they are heterogeneous. A fixed-effect model is customarily used when the studies are deemed homogeneous, while a random-effects model is used for heterogeneous studies. Assessing heterogeneity in meta-analysis is critical for model selection and decision...