PCLM-D-24-00114

The impact of environmental shocks due to climate change on intimate partner violence: A structural equation model of data from 156 countries

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Jenevieve,

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 5th of August, 2024. 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.

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• 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'.
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• 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,

Shah Md Atiqul Haq

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 If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references.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 If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

Dear authors,

Thank you for submitting the very important article.

As climate change impacts are getting worse, there will be effects on gender-based violence.

I think the article on climate change and sexual violence can be helpful.

I would request to highlights the implications of the key findings as it includes a large data set.

I also request to provide evidence-based recommendations and how it can be context-based as all the countries included in the analysis do not have similar socioeconomic and cultural contexts.

I also suggest the concluding remarks should be more forceful.

Best wishes,

[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

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

Reviewer #1: I don't know

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 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

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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

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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 authors present an important study that aims to provide a global understanding of the impacts of climate shocks on the prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) over an approximately two-decade time period. The authors use a variety of high quality national and international databases to obtain data on IPV from 156 countries, as well as a comprehensive international database to obtain climate shock data specific to country and year. The authors report that IPV incidence and one climate factor (comprising storms, landslides and floods) were significantly associated, though IPV was not significantly associated with the other two climate factors (events driven by geological and atmospheric processes). This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the association between IPV and climate shock events, supporting the notion that some climate shocks associated with climate change can have serious social and safety implications for women. I have only minor comments, which I have detailed below. I really enjoyed reading this paper!

Comment 1: line 55 – I’m not sure that droughts should be considered acute climate events given they are defined by extended periods (i.e. years) of reduced rainfall. After I read further though, I realised that its inclusion in the study was because it is included in the EMDAT database, which is obviously beyond the control of the authors. It does make me wonder about how its inclusion may impact the model though, given it is the only climate event that can’t be given a discrete event date like all other included climate events and therefore may ‘behave’ differently to all other climatic events (ecologically and socially). The authors seem to consider this in the discussion lines 317-319, but perhaps they could be a bit more specific about the differences in occurrence timescales between droughts and all other acute climate events, and how that might relate to differences in immediate versus long-term impacts on IPV.

Comment 2: Line 123 – I’m unsure of the specific journal requirements but it seems unusual that Appendix C is the first to be cited, followed by Appendix B then Appendix A. Double-check journal requirements and revise Appendix numbers if needed.

Comment 3: I don’t have the necessary knowledge to confidently comment on the use and appropriateness of the statistical methods used (though I appreciate the guidance in lines 212-215 signposting relevant goodness of fit values!).

Comment 4: Line 224 – it may be worth stating what significance level was considered statistically significant here (p-value 0.01 or 0.05).

Reviewer #2: The paper is skillfully written and structured. idea provides strong support for the data analysis.

I would, however, recommend adding more pertinent devouring material to the discussion section.

The study's hypothesis should be clearly stated in the introduction.

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

Reviewer #1: Yes: Alexandra (Allie) Nance

Reviewer #2: Yes: Sara Akram

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The impact of environmental shocks due to climate change on intimate partner violence: A structural equation model of data from 156 countries

PCLM-D-24-00114R1

Dear Dr Mannell,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript 'The impact of environmental shocks due to climate change on intimate partner violence: A structural equation model of data from 156 countries' 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,

Jamie Males

Staff Editor

PLOS Climate

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Reviewer Comments (if any, and for reference):

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: All comments have been addressed

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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: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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

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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

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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 additional comments - very happy with author responses

Reviewer #2: Every criticism and concern has been taken into account.

good luck for publication

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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: Yes: Alexandra H Nance

Reviewer #2: Yes: Dr. Sara Akram

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