**Acknowledgements**

*E. coli* research based on previous publications. Because we used parameters such as region, year, topic and clinical syndrome, this provided some measure of direction as to how *E. coli*

**Table 1.** Countries comprising each of the three world regions and published outputs of *E. coli* research resulting from

**Europe N Americas N Australasia N**

 Netherlands 4 USA 16 Australia 4 UK 3 Canada 8 China 3 Denmark 2 Brazil 2 Japan 1 Germany 4 Total **26** Iran 1 Poland 1 Pakistan 1 Italy 6 Bangladesh 1 Sweden 1 Turkey 1 Greece 1 Philippines 1 France 1 Total **13**

242 *Escherichia coli* Escherichia coli - Recent Advances on Physiology, Pathogenesis and Biotechnological Applications - Recent Advances on Physiology, Pathogenesis and Biotechnological Applications

*E. coli* meta-analyses in this survey varied in many aspects, not only in geography but also in the topic and syndrome. Most salient was variability in the outcomes and approaches. For outcomes, they ranged from presence to absence of associations and effectivity or absence of treatment. The point of these outcomes is the exposition of magnitude where influence of factors may be great or minimal; all these having been statistically treated. For approaches, subjects range from humans to non-human animals and even plants (fresh produce). This survey of meta-analysis publications indicates areas of discipline that were emphasized and those that were not. *E. coli* research outputs, as in other biomedical disciplines, are increasing at an exponential rate. Because of the critical importance of *E. coli* research findings across populations and geographical regions, objective evaluation of these primary studies may facilitate decision making that impacts upon public health policy. Clinicians, researchers and demographers in this field would likely benefit from the use and interpretation of meta-analysis. The survey in this review delineates a relatively high use of meta-analysis in *E. coli* research in the Americas, where the USA most specifically continues to assert its capability in utilizing outputs from primary *E. coli* studies since the turn of the twentieth century. Of note, the recent years also showed increasing use of *E. coli* meta-analyses from Europe and Australasia. Not

research was conducted and what areas in this discipline need focusing in the future.

N: number of published articles; UK: United Kingdom; USA: United States of America.

**2.10. Conclusions**

10 Ireland 1 11 Portugal 1 12 Slovenia 1

Total **26**

literature searches in PubMed, Science Direct and Google Scholar.

The authors thank our affiliate institution, Angeles University Foundation for infrastructure support.

