PCLM-D-25-00036

Exploring Implementation of Disaster Risk Management Strategies by Public Housing Authorities: A National Survey

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Khan,

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.

Your manuscript has been evaluated by five reviewers, and their comments are available below.

The reviewers have identified a range of matters to address, relating primarily to detail in reporting, depth of discussion, and clarity regarding definitions. Please ensure you address each of the reviewers' comments when revising your manuscript.

Please submit your revised manuscript by May 30 2025 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,

Hugh Cowley

Staff Editor

PLOS Climate

Journal Requirements:

1. Please note that PLOS Climate has specific guidelines on code sharing for submissions in which author-generated code underpins the findings in the manuscript. In these cases, we expect all author-generated code to be made available without restrictions upon publication of the work. Please review our guidelines at https://journals.plos.org/climate/s/materials-and-software-sharing#loc-sharing-code and ensure that your code is shared in a way that follows best practice and facilitates reproducibility and reuse.

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

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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: Yes

Reviewer #4: Partly

Reviewer #5: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

Reviewer #5: Yes

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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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

Reviewer #5: Yes

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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

Reviewer #4: Yes

Reviewer #5: Yes

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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: The research article entitled "Exploring Implementation of Disaster Risk Management Strategies by Public Housing

Authorities: A National Survey" meets all of the publication criteria of PLOS Climate. The authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available. The manuscript presented in standard English. Overall, the manuscript is describing the study title quite well. Author may try to add some graphical respresentation or flowchart of the process of sampling, same can be done for the results also. This might help the reader to understand more easily.

Reviewer #2: This is an important study on DRM strategies by local public housing authorities. More could be added about predicted relationships and larger contributions to our understanding of climate risk under housing scarcity, more theoretical context of the the literature integrated. How the authors measured the number of vulnerable communities in population would also be useful to address. Perhaps in the conclusion the authors could also add the importance of community organizations as another key partnership with PHAs. PHAs appear to be close to the numbers of counties in the USA in terms of distribution, more information on what PHA district includes in geographic terms would be helpful. Since this is a census survey of all PHA directors, more information on potential response bias should be mentioned beyond missing Hawaii in terms of the 16% response rate for an extremely short survey. Did authors offer any compensation for taking survey?

Reviewer #3: Dear authors,

The study is very important and address the issue disaster risk management by public authorities in the context of the USA is very timely.

The authors provide a detail explanation why this study is important and how it will contribute.

I request you to provide a conceptual framework by providing indicators managing disaster risk and strategies by public authorities so that readers can easily understand the indicators.

I also suggest to reduce the length of the article. It seems to me a bit longer.

The conclusion should bring key findings and its implications and what policies the study is suggesting to the authorities and what are the obstacle implementing initiatives by the public authorities, needs to be clearly mentioned.

Reviewer #4: Peer Review Report

1. Summary of the Research

The manuscript titled Exploring Implementation of Disaster Risk Management Strategies by Public Housing Authorities: A National Survey investigates the disaster risk management (DRM) strategies adopted by Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) in the United States. The study emphasises the growing issues of cheap housing as well as the increased frequency of natural disasters caused by climate change. The study uses a national survey to measure the extent to which PHAs apply DRM techniques, as well as the impact of organisational and community-level variables such as PHA size, Moving to Work (MTW) status, urban classification, and state governors' political affiliations.

The study's findings indicate that larger PHAs and those classified as MTW are more likely to employ DRM techniques. Furthermore, metropolitan PHAs are more equipped than rural equivalents. The study is important in understanding the structural and budgetary restrictions that impact catastrophe resilience in public housing.

Strengths:

• The paper tackles an important topic at the nexus of climate change and affordable housing.

• It offers a comprehensive survey approach, ensuring widespread participation from PHAs around the nation.

• The application of Fisher's exact test provides statistical rigour to the investigation.

• The study addresses a knowledge gap in understanding the organisational aspects that influence DRM deployment in federally subsidised housing.

Weaknesses:

• The study lacks in-depth qualitative insights, which could help provide a more complete picture of PHA decision-making.

• The dependence on self-reported survey responses may cause bias in the results.

• Statistical analysis could be enhanced to include regression models to provide a more complete assessment of impacting variables.

• The book does not delve deeply into policy implications and possibly legislative recommendations.

Overall recommendation: Revise and Resubmit

2. Examples and Evidence

Major Issues:

1. Statistical Analysis: While Fisher's exact test is adequate for small sample sizes, using logistic regression or other multivariate models could improve the conclusions.

2. Data Availability: According to the authors, deidentified survey data is available upon request. A public data repository link should be supplied to ensure openness.

3. Contextualisation: Additional material comparing DRM solutions across public and private housing organisations could be useful for this study.

4. Definitions of DRM Strategies: The article lacks a clear basis for selecting six DRM techniques. Existing frameworks or policies should be used to justify.

5. Limitations Section: The authors acknowledge the possibility of response bias, but do not explain how it could have distorted the results. A more thorough description of biases and mitigation measures would boost credibility.

6. Policy Implications: The paper will be strengthened by a section describing how policymakers could use the findings to improve the implementation of DRM in public housing.

7. Comparative Analysis: A comparison between PHAs that are effectively implementing DRM strategies and those that are not could provide additional information on best practices.

Minor Issues:

1. Urban Classification Explanation: The method does not clearly state if rural PHAs experience other structural obstacles in addition to financial limitations.

2. Formatting and Readability: Some sections, particularly the methods and results, have very dense paragraphs that would be better split up to improve overall readability.

3. Terminology Consistency: The terms "disaster preparedness" and "disaster risk management" are occasionally used interchangeably. Defining them at the outset would be more clarifying.

4. Clarity of Figures and Tables: Certain tables and figures may benefit from enhanced labeling to facilitate reader understanding.

3. Other Points (Optional)

• No ethical concerns were identified.

• If the authors incorporate revisions as suggested, I would be willing to review a revised version of the manuscript.

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Final Recommendation: While the manuscript is well-structured and tackles a relevant issue, it requires revisions in statistical rigor, data transparency, contextualization, and policy implications to meet PLOS Climate’s publication standards.

Reviewer #5: The paper is well drafted, only thing which i found missing is some historical disaster events and support of weather data and extreme events, if those can be incorporated, it will increase the depth of the research.

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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

Reviewer #4: No

Reviewer #5: No

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[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.

Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Peer Review Report_CAA.docx

PCLM-D-25-00036R1

Exploring Implementation of Disaster Risk Management Strategies by Public Housing Authorities: A National Survey

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Khan,

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 find the reviewers comments below. One reviewer has outlined several points that should be addressed primarily around the methodological rigour of the work and placing this study without the wider context of the literature. Please ensure you address these and provide a point by point response. 

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jul 16 2025 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,

Joanna Tindall, PhD

Staff Editor

PLOS Climate

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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2. 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: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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4. 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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

5. 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

**********

6. 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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: The authors have addressed most reviewers' comments. However, multiple reviewers requested more conceptual framing up front in the paper and the specific contribution to the housing justice and climate change literature. There is still no engagement with this the theoretical literature in environmental justice scholarship. Also, there is still not enough of a justification for solely bivariate analysis with no attempt to run multivariate models on key dependent variables.

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7. 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

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[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 Implementation of Disaster Risk Management Strategies by Public Housing Authorities: A National Survey

PCLM-D-25-00036R2

Dear Dr. Khan,

We're pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you'll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you'll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Thomas Thaler

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: