Matthias Egger is professor of epidemiology and public health at the University of Bern in Switzerland, as well as professor of clinical epidemiology at the

University of Bristol The University of Bristol is a public university, public research university in Bristol, England. It received its royal charter in 1909, although it can trace its roots to a Merchant Venturers' school founded in 1595 and University College, Br ...

in the United Kingdom.

Education and career

Egger completed his clinical training at the University of Bern and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. He joined the faculty of the University of Bern in 2002, and also became a professor at the University of Bristol that year. From 2017 to 2024, Matthias Egger was president of the Research Council of the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Scientific work

In 1997, Egger published a paper describing a method for detecting bias in meta-analyses by analyzing funnel plots. This paper has been cited more than 38,600 times on

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of Academic publishing, scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in Beta release, beta in November 2004, th ...

as of May 2022. In 2005, Egger published a study comparing 110 trials of

homeopathy Homeopathy or homoeopathy is a pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine. It was conceived in 1796 by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann. Its practitioners, called homeopaths or homeopathic physicians, believe that a substance that ...

with 110 trials of conventional medicine in ''the Lancet''. It found that there was strong evidence that conventional medicine was more effective than

placebo A placebo ( ) can be roughly defined as a sham medical treatment. Common placebos include inert tablets (like sugar pills), inert injections (like saline), sham surgery, and other procedures. Placebos are used in randomized clinical trials ...

, but only weak evidence that homeopathy was. Egger told WebMD that in this study, "The effect of homeopathy disappears if you look only at large, good trials; whereas the conventional medicines' effect is still there." Egger has also published research on a wide variety of other medical topics, such as the demographics of people who choose

assisted suicide Assisted suicide, sometimes restricted to the context of physician-assisted suicide (PAS), is the process by which a person, with the help of others, takes actions to end their life. Once it is determined that the person's situation qualifie ...

, the association between exposure to aircraft noise and heart attacks, and the effectiveness of pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccines.

Other activities

* Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA), Member of the Board of Directors (since 2020)Who we are
Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA).

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Egger, Matthias Academic staff of the University of Bern Living people Swiss public health doctors Alumni of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Academics of the University of Bristol Year of birth missing (living people)