A meta-analysis example: “Quantifying the Influence of Climate on Human Conflict” Part I

In 2013, Professor Miguel and two of his colleagues, Solomon Hsiang and Marshall Burke, conducted a meta-analysis of studies examining the impacts of climate and environmental variability on violent human conflict. There was no shortage of studies to include, but the abundance of literature, as well as the interdisciplinary nature of the field and the broad umbrella under which impacts fell, made the exclusion of some studies and standardization across other necessary. For example, they omitted long-term historical studies and reanalyzed primary data to make comparisons between them more feasible. Their analysis revealed a striking pattern across multiple types of environmental variation, regions, and geographical scales.

Read our full paper on BITSS.org.

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Reference

Hsiang, Solomon M., Marshall Burke, and Edward Miguel. 2013. “Quantifying the Influence of Climate on Human Conflict.” Science 341 (6151): 1235367. doi:10.1126/science.1235367.