# Does it make sense to average q-values?

I have 3 lists of significant hits (p-value < 0.05). I also adjusted for multiple comparison problem and added q-values to each list. These 3 lists (hits) also partially overlap. For the hits that overlap I was wondering if it makes sense to average the q-value? So, for instance,

Hit X (List1): pval=0.004, qval=0.0045

Hit X (List2): pval=0.0006, qval=0.0006

Hit X (List3): pval=0.02, qval=0.04

Therefore, to summarize my findings I would add to "Hit X" an average q-val of (0.0045+0.0006+0.04)/3 = 0.0150.

Not sure if that makes sense though?

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What are you talking about? What are "significant hits"? What are q-values? What are you trying to find out? Please read How to ask a statistics question – Peter Flom Oct 17 '12 at 10:17
I thought this is a statistic community and I therefore assumed people know at least what's a p- and a q-value? And of course a significant hit? – user969113 Oct 17 '12 at 10:20
I've been a statistician for many years and I don't have any idea what you are talking about. I Googled q-value and found that it is the minimum false discovery rate; the only other time I've heard of q value it was (1-p) where p is a probability. "Significant hit" is completely opaque. Googling "significant hit" and "statistics" yields stuff about popularity and about baseball. – Peter Flom Oct 17 '12 at 10:27

$FDR \le \frac{{{m_0}}}{m}q\left( {1 + \frac{1}{2} + \frac{1}{3} + ... + \frac{1}{m}} \right) \approx \frac{{{m_0}}}{m}q\log \left( m \right)$