These days, meta-analysis becomes an important technique to generate pool evidence to support decision making. However, the heterogeneity effect is affecting the quality of meta-analysis findings. Therefore, I found it is important to share this with scholars and share to the researchers who have the concern. Thus, what could be the possible mechanisms to manage heterogeneity related issues in addition to subgroup analysis. I think it is better to see it from the conception to the report writeup section while answering this question.
To my personal view, the following points will be helpful:
1). Use very strong inclusion and exclusion criteria while selecting papers
2). See the methodological, and settings of each paper
3). Do subgroup analysis by identifying the most important paper, variable, method, etc
4). Consider the reality environment in addition to papers to decide
5). Do in team and consult the senior experts on meta-analysis
Some of the things you said are very true. The ability to draw valid conclusions depends on quality of the research approach.
An important alternative (statistical) approach for conducting further exploration of the causes of heterogeneity is meta-regression (using multiple moderators simultaneously also). For subgroups, you need to split the sample into multiple (dichotomized) groups - i.e., mainly to detect differences in kind. With meta-regression, you can still do that using dummy variables, but you can also detect differences using continuous moderators - i.e., also detect differences in degree.
Look at these papers
Article Meta-analysis: Key features, potentials and misunderstandings
Article Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Studies Evaluating Di...
Article Meta-analysis, complexity, and heterogeneity: A qualitative ...
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