PCLM-D-23-00006

Exploring the association between health, local area characteristics and climate action plans in the UK: cross-sectional analysis using administrative data from 2018 and a citizen science ranking of climate action plans from 2021

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Brown,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS Climate. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 07 2023 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at climate@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pclm/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Tarik Benmarhnia, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

Journal Requirements:

1. Please amend your detailed Financial Disclosure statement. This is published with the article. It must therefore be completed in full sentences and contain the exact wording you wish to be published.

a. State the initials, alongside each funding source, of each author to receive each grant.

b. State what role the funders took in the study. If the funders had no role in your study, please state: “The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.”

c. If any authors received a salary from any of your funders, please state which authors and which funders.

If you did not receive any funding for this study, please simply state: “The authors received no specific funding for this work.”

2. Please provide separate figure files in .tif or .eps format.

For more information about figure files please see our guidelines:

https://journals.plos.org/climate/s/figures 

https://journals.plos.org/climate/s/figures#loc-file-requirements

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to Plos Climate. Your manuscript has been peer-reviewed, and the comments of the three expert reviewers are provided below. While reviewers highlighted that this is an important and timely topic, they also raised significant concerns that would need to be carefully addressed so we can reassess whether this manuscript is suitable for publication.

We look forward to receiving a revised version of your manuscript that carefully addresses these comments.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Partly

**********

2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: I don't know

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Climate does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Main comment:

Thank you for this study – it highlights important policy gaps within UK climate change plans. However, I’m suggesting major revisions for this manuscript.

I’m unsure upfront what the the aim of the study to highlight the gaps in climate policy or to highlight the impact of climate change on health. Because health is managed slightly differently under UK policy. I think that you are describing the concept of social vulnerability. It seems like much of the supporting literature to this end is currently missing from the manuscript.

Please consider changing the title with social vulnerability in mind.

Abstract:

Make it clear that local governments have no statutory requirements to reduce emissions – that is very important.

Instead of inequities you could call this ‘social vulnerability.’

Introduction:

Please add more citations, to back up aims and evident statements.

You appear to be describing social vulnerability – I’d like to see that added into the introduction.

I find the start of the manuscript discussing health not in keeping with the flow of the paper – I think the importance of this study is to explore local climate change plans in line with levels of social vulnerability.

Methods:

This section needs to be cited. Where is the data coming from.

Why have you decided to use these methods?

Results:

Upfront pull out the most important finding and then describe.

Discuss the significant findings first.

Discussion:

This section needs to be cited and supported by existing literature.

The reason I would think you wouldn’t find an association with health is because health and climate change are covered by the Department of Health and Social Care (UKHSA) and this is in partnership with the Ministry of Local Government and Housing – of course the health and social care act suitability is another question. You have found a small association with levels of social vulnerability.

Without additional resource from central government and increasing demand

For provisions of statutory services such as social care [11-13], more deprived local authorities risk

falling behind in making the transition to net zero. – This is an important statement, is there a suggestion in mind to resolve this?

Conclusion:

Pull out some key recommendations that your study can make to improve climate action plans.

Reviewer #2: This is a manuscript on the "Exploring the association between health, local area characteristics and climate action

plans in the UK: cross-sectional analysis using administrative data from 2018 and a

citizen science ranking of climate action plans from 2021".

Overall this is a well written and interesting manuscript.

The introduction is too long and yet it does not refer to other studies conducted at the local level that take into account the impact of local factors on heat vulnerability. A more in-depth literature review should be undertaken to analyse how local factors can influence heat vulnerability and adaptation.

It is also not clearly defined what the prevention plan consists of and what temperature values it is based on.

The authors should analyse the role of income level, building quality and energy poverty, which are variables that other studies have identified as key to vulnerability to high temperatures.

Reviewer #3: The study focuses on exploring the association of certain domains with the climate action plans. This is a very critical area of study as it contributes to the further the climate action measures.

The study presented here is very relevant and in a certain way a step towards evaluation of climate action taken at the local level.

Abstract and Introduction has been written properly.

Methods: Page no 5, para 2: How was the weighted score calculated? It should be elaborated properly. What is the criteria for the selection of 9 dimensions. There should some discussion on the nine dimensions to understand implications of these dimensions to Climate action plan.

Discussion: page 9 para 2: There is a sudden mention of heterogeneity and "some" dimensions. What kind of heterogeneity is being discussed here? The authors should be specific about the dimensions and not write "some" dimensions.

Conclusion: It is written very poorly. It is very weak and general. What are the conclusions of the study? What are the possible applications of this study? What is a future scope of this study?

The conclusions should also be accordingly modified in the abstract.

**********

6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

**********

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Exploring the association between health, local area characteristics and climate action plans in the UK: cross-sectional analysis using administrative data from 2018 and a citizen science ranking of climate action plans from 2021

PCLM-D-23-00006R1

Dear Professor Brown,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript 'Exploring the association between health, local area characteristics and climate action plans in the UK: cross-sectional analysis using administrative data from 2018 and a citizen science ranking of climate action plans from 2021' has been provisionally accepted for publication in PLOS Climate.

Before your manuscript can be formally accepted you will need to complete some formatting changes, which you will receive in a follow-up email from a member of our team. 

Please note that your manuscript will not be scheduled for publication until you have made the required changes, so a swift response is appreciated.

IMPORTANT: The editorial review process is now complete. PLOS will only permit corrections to spelling, formatting or significant scientific errors from this point onwards. Requests for major changes, or any which affect the scientific understanding of your work, will cause delays to the publication date of your manuscript.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact climate@plos.org.

Thank you again for supporting Open Access publishing; we are looking forward to publishing your work in PLOS Climate.

Best regards,

Tarik Benmarhnia, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

***********************************************************

Thank you for submitting a revised version of your manuscript. I think the authors did a great job at addressing the main comments from the reviewers and the paper is suitable for publication. Congratulations on this important work.

Reviewer Comments (if any, and for reference):