PCLM-D-25-00266

Heat exposure and physical-mental health outcomes among older adults in India: findings from the Longitudinal Aging Study (LASI) Wave-I

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Wang,

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 Nov 13 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,

Teodoro Georgiadis

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

Journal Requirements:

If the reviewer comments include a recommendation to cite specific previously published works, please review and evaluate these publications to determine whether they are relevant and should be cited. There is no requirement to cite these works unless the editor has indicated otherwise.

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 If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references.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 If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

Both reviewers found the manuscript well written and of potential interest to a wide public. Some comments reported for minor modifications to increase the readability of the paper. The suggestion to author is to follow the reviewer's comments in improving the new version

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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?>

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: 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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: The structure of the article is well-written and flows well. All the highlighted chapters are in line with the journal's requirements. The authors clearly and concisely explain the data they started with, how they cleaned and processed it, allowing the reader to understand each methodological step and justifying it.

I suggest a few minor revisions to make the text even more readable, which I specify below:

-line 88: use the third person

-in Table 1, it is not clear what the “non-exposure” column refers to. Use the caption to specify.

-line 188: feeling depressed (β = 0.09, p < 0.001) → these values are not found anywhere in Table 3, add them

-the same applies to lines 189, 191, 194, 196/197 indicate which table the values refer to, and if missing, add them to the table. The same applies to lines 199 to 211, where values in brackets are mentioned that refer to a table.

-Line 195: I suggest specifying that “feeling of fatigue” refers to Table 3 “feel tired”.

-I suggest renaming the chapter “Discussion” to “Discussion and conclusion”.

Otherwise, from my point of view, it is a very well-done piece of work, useful for highlighting new business models between the social and health sectors.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript is very well written ans organized. The outcomes are of very high interest and presented for a large diffusion between scholars.

My only suggestion is to provide the outcomes non only in form of Tables but also to improve its readability with some graphical support . For this reason, I suggest minor revision.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Heat exposure and physical-mental health outcomes among older adults in India: findings from the Longitudinal Aging Study (LASI) Wave-I

PCLM-D-25-00266R1

Dear PhD Wang,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript 'Heat exposure and physical-mental health outcomes among older adults in India: findings from the Longitudinal Aging Study (LASI) Wave-I' 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,

Teodoro Georgiadis

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

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Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

The Authors had provided the modifications requested by the reviewers also modifying some methodological part in order to furnish a better readability of the manuscript. I suggest to publish in the present version.

Reviewer Comments (if any, and for reference):