Flexible piecewise linear model for investigating dose‐response relationship in meta‐analysis: Methodology, examples, and comparison

OBJECTIVES: Dose-response meta-analysis (DRMA) is widely employed in establishing the potential dose-response relationship between continuous exposures and disease outcomes. However, there is no valid DRMA method readily for discrete exposures, especially when the possible dose-response trend not likely to be linear. We proposed a piecewise linear DRMA model as a solution to this issue. METHODS: We illustrated the methodology of piecewise …