Noar Seth M
Department of Communication, University of Kentucky, Lexington, 40506-0042, USA.
Health Commun. 2006;20(2):169-75. doi: 10.1207/s15327027hc2002_8.
A major goal in health communication and related disciplines is the building of cumulative knowledge across numerous lines of inquiry. Traditionally, attempts to synthesize research and build knowledge have been achieved through narrative or integrative research reviews. However, the advent of meta-analysis in the late 1970s gave researchers a more sophisticated approach to synthesizing quantitative research literatures. This article (a) provides an overview of the meta-analytic approach, (b) discusses the historical context of meta-analysis, (c) examines the role that meta-analysis has played in the synthesis of health communication research, and (d) suggests future applications of the technique within health communication. It appears that meta-analysis has only recently been applied to the health communication field in a substantive way, and that its potential for moving the field forward has thus only begun to be realized.
健康传播及相关学科的一个主要目标是通过众多研究方向积累知识。传统上，综合研究和积累知识的尝试是通过叙述性或综合性研究综述来实现的。然而，20世纪70年代末荟萃分析的出现，为研究人员提供了一种更复杂的方法来综合定量研究文献。本文（a）概述了荟萃分析方法，（b）讨论了荟萃分析的历史背景，（c）考察了荟萃分析在健康传播研究综合中所起的作用，（d）提出了该技术在健康传播领域的未来应用。似乎荟萃分析直到最近才被实质性地应用于健康传播领域，因此其推动该领域发展的潜力才刚刚开始得到认识。
