Sanity checks before meta-analysis

Sanity checks before meta-analysis

Usage

check_df_for_meta(df, cols_needed)

Arguments

df

a parameter dataframe. This must have columns for each of the following: parameter_value, parameter_unit, plus two columns for the numerator and the denominator of the proportion of interest. This dataframe will typically be the params data.frame from the output of load_epidata.

cols_needed

a character vector specifying the names of the columns required for the meta-analysis.

Value

a parameter dataframe with offending rows removed.

Details

The function carries out a series of checks on the parameter dataframe to ensure that it is in the correct format for conducting a meta-analysis. It checks that the input (1) consists of a single parameter type; (2) has the columns required for the meta-analysis; (3) does not have any row where a value is present but the unit is missing, or vice versa. All such rows are removed; and (4) has the same unit across all values of the parameter. The function will throw an error if either there is more than one value of parameter_type, or if the columns needed for the meta-analysis are missing, or if the parameter_unit is not the same across all values of the parameter.