A planning committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will organize a series of virtual public workshops that explore the evidence on methods for conducting, interpreting and integrating the results of meta-analyses for use in nutrition research, developing nutrition policy, and informing nutrition regulatory decision-making. The workshops will feature invited presentations and discussions that will focus on improving guidance to researchers and policy-makers. Specific topic areas to be considered include:

• Criteria used to determine clinical or methodological differences among individual nutrition studies;
• Extraction errors and errors in calculating mean differences and confidence intervals from the primary studies that are included in a meta-analysis;
• Benchmark practices for planning appropriate subgroup and sensitivity analyses, and addressing public bias;
• Use of meta-analyses to evaluate the strength of the totality of evidence;
• Interpretation and integration of meta-analyses and direction of effect of individual studies into the overall body of evidence;
• Evaluation of the strength of the evidence when different outcomes are reported in different studies;
• Consideration of statistical heterogeneity and risk of bias when evaluating diet and disease relationships; and
• Communication of meta-analyses relevant to nutrition policy decision makers.

The planning committee will select and invite speakers and discussants as well as moderate the discussions. A workshop proceedings will be prepared by a designated rapporteur in accordance with institutional guidelines.