> accepting the results of a meta-analysis in a field where the typical research quality is low. I can only speak to medicine (which is filled with low quality

> accepting the results of a meta-analysis in a field where the typical research quality is low. I can only speak to medicine (which is filled with low quality research) but this is a non-issue in my field. Who ignores quality in a SR? Low quality research leads to a low certainty SR. See Cochrane for an example of how to do this correctly. A lot of their review use low-quality studies because that’s all that exists, it’s very much disclosed and transparent. > I personally think you should be skeptical of meta-analyses in any field, because it is very, very hard to do one "correctly". The point of PRISMA was to make it easy. In diagnostic accuracy we also have QUADAS-2 and STARD. It’s really not that hard, the point of EQUATOR network and researchers like P Bossuyt & co was to make things easier. Any medical SR would include a PRISMA statement these days. One should be skeptical of any research and critically appraise it, but systematic reviews aren’t necessarily “harder” to do than primary research studies. They also carry more weight so we have to be able to trust the methodology (hence PRISMA). Many groups do this correctly… If you mean the old school assumption that "pooling low-quality studies in a SR automatically makes it high-quality evidence" that's not really a thing anymore. The problem is a lot of primary research is at high-risk of bias. So coming up with a low-risk SR is hard, making the assessments is not. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1743919121000406 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S174391912... https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/full/10.7326/0003-4819-155-8-201110180-00009 https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/full/10.7326/0003-4819-155-8... https://pubs.rsna.org/doi/full/10.1148/radiol.2015151516 https://pubs.rsna.org/doi/full/10.1148/radiol.2015151516