Figure 6
Forest plots for the meta-analysis of the influence of preventive zinc supplementation on four diarrhea outcomes- prevalence of diarrhea (red), incidence of persistent diarrhea (blue), incidence of dysentery (orange) and incidence of all-cause mortality (green). Diamonds and error bars indicate the point and 95% confidence interval observed in each study. ES, effect size; CI, confidence interval; W, statistical weight for derived from the DerSimonian and Laird random effects model. Summary relative risk estimate size for each outcome is shown as a filled diamond. The 95% prediction interval is shown as a standard normal curve and the opposite effects proportion [Pr(OE)] are shown in the box depicting assessment of heterogeneity. Suffixes a and b to some studies indicate two comparisons within a single study against the same placebo as detailed in Supplementary Table (see Additional File 4). Light grey background indicates beneficial effect of zinc and dark grey background indicates a harmful effect of zinc. Degree of heterogeneity across studies in the meta-analysis for each outcome is shown as color-coded pie-charts on the lower-left. The filled slice in the pie-charts indicates the I2 statistic. Also shown are the values of Ï„2 along with the 95% confidence interval, the among-study variance for each outcome.