Defined term · Evidence assessment
Inconsistency
Unexplained variation in effect estimates across contributing studies, beyond what chance would produce. Consistency of direction with variation in magnitude is treated differently from variation in…
§1Inconsistency
§1.1Also known as
Heterogeneity
§1.2Category
Evidence assessment — Terms describing how the Institute judges and reports the strength of evidence.
§1.3Related terms
- Heterogeneity — Variation in effect estimates across studies beyond that expected from chance. Quantified imperfectly by the I-squared statistic and assessed by inspection of the…
- I-squared — The proportion of observed variation across studies attributable to heterogeneity rather than to chance. Does not indicate whether the heterogeneity matters, and takes…
Compound Evidence Institute · CEI-GT-013 · https://compoundevidence.com/glossary/inconsistency/ · retrieved 30 July 2026