Dear Mr. Parker,

Thank you very much for submitting your manuscript "Exploring the role of temperature and other environmental factors in West Nile virus incidence and prediction in California counties from 2017-2022" for consideration at PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. As with all papers reviewed by the journal, your manuscript was reviewed by members of the editorial board and by several independent reviewers. The reviewers appreciated the attention to an important topic. Based on the reviews, we are likely to accept this manuscript for publication, providing that you modify the manuscript according to the review recommendations.

Your manuscript has been reviewed by several experts who considered it of high quality and valuable. One reviewer made some minor suggestions that might clarify some points in the manuscript. Please evaluate these, edit your manuscript appropriately, and re-submit it along with a brief explanation of the changes you made or did not make. Thank you!

Please prepare and submit your revised manuscript within 30 days. If you anticipate any delay, please let us know the expected resubmission date by replying to this email.

When you are ready to resubmit, please upload the following:

[1] A letter containing a detailed list of your responses to all review comments, and a description of the changes you have made in the manuscript.

Please note while forming your response, if your article is accepted, you may have the opportunity to make the peer review history publicly available. The record will include editor decision letters (with reviews) and your responses to reviewer comments. If eligible, we will contact you to opt in or out

[2] Two versions of the revised manuscript: one with either highlights or tracked changes denoting where the text has been changed; the other a clean version (uploaded as the manuscript file).

Important additional instructions are given below your reviewer comments.

Thank you again for your submission to our journal. We hope that our editorial process has been constructive so far, and we welcome your feedback at any time. Please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or comments.

Sincerely,

Richard A. Bowen

Academic Editor

PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases

Mabel Carabali

Section Editor

PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases

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

Your manuscript has been reviewed by several experts who considered it of high quality and valuable. One reviewer made some minor suggestions that might clarify some points in the manuscript. Please evaluate these, edit your manuscript appropriately, and re-submit it along with a brief explanation of the changes you made or did not make. Thank you!

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Key Review Criteria Required for Acceptance?

As you describe the new analyses required for acceptance, please consider the following:

Methods

-Are the objectives of the study clearly articulated with a clear testable hypothesis stated?

-Is the study design appropriate to address the stated objectives?

-Is the population clearly described and appropriate for the hypothesis being tested?

-Is the sample size sufficient to ensure adequate power to address the hypothesis being tested?

-Were correct statistical analysis used to support conclusions?

-Are there concerns about ethical or regulatory requirements being met?

Reviewer #1: The objectives of the study are clearly articulated with a clear testable hypothesis stated.

The study design is appropriate to address the stated objectives.

The population is clearly described and appropriate for the hypothesis being tested.

The sample size should be sufficient to ensure adequate power to address the hypothesis being tested. The authors could consider conducting a power analysis to confirm.

Correct statistical analysis methods were used to support conclusions.

There are no concerns about ethical or regulatory requirements being met.

Reviewer #2: -Are the objectives of the study clearly articulated with a clear testable hypothesis stated?

YES

-Is the study design appropriate to address the stated objectives?

YES

-Is the population clearly described and appropriate for the hypothesis being tested?

YES but some of the limitations and restrictions of the data seemed arbitrary and may need greater justification

-Is the sample size sufficient to ensure adequate power to address the hypothesis being tested?

YES

-Were correct statistical analysis used to support conclusions?

YES, probably but I am not a statistician and some terms were not sufficiently explained in common english. Further explanation is needed.

-Are there concerns about ethical or regulatory requirements being met?

NO

--------------------

Results

-Does the analysis presented match the analysis plan?

-Are the results clearly and completely presented?

-Are the figures (Tables, Images) of sufficient quality for clarity?

Reviewer #1: The analysis presented matches the analysis plan.

The results are clearly and completely presented.

The figures and tables are of sufficient quality for clarity.

In Table 1, however, the authors should consider clarifying what is meant by “average” here? Does it make more sense to report a mean with standard deviation or median with IQR based on the distribution of the data? Some measure of spread is needed here.

Reviewer #2: -Does the analysis presented match the analysis plan?

YES

-Are the results clearly and completely presented?

YES

-Are the figures (Tables, Images) of sufficient quality for clarity?

YES

--------------------

Conclusions

-Are the conclusions supported by the data presented?

-Are the limitations of analysis clearly described?

-Do the authors discuss how these data can be helpful to advance our understanding of the topic under study?

-Is public health relevance addressed?

Reviewer #1: The conclusions are supported by the data presented.

The limitations of analysis are clearly described.

The authors discuss how these data can be helpful to advance our understanding of West Nile Virus incidence.

Public health relevance is addressed.

Reviewer #2: -Are the conclusions supported by the data presented?

YES

-Are the limitations of analysis clearly described?

YES

-Do the authors discuss how these data can be helpful to advance our understanding of the topic under study?

YES

-Is public health relevance addressed?

YES

--------------------

Editorial and Data Presentation Modifications?

Use this section for editorial suggestions as well as relatively minor modifications of existing data that would enhance clarity. If the only modifications needed are minor and/or editorial, you may wish to recommend “Minor Revision” or “Accept”.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: GEE and zero-inflated models are difficult concepts not clearly explained for a general reader.

Please give some common english explanations for these two terms that could help us to understand what they are and why they are different/more or less appropriate.

--------------------

Summary and General Comments

Use this section to provide overall comments, discuss strengths/weaknesses of the study, novelty, significance, general execution and scholarship. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. If requesting major revision, please articulate the new experiments that are needed.

Reviewer #1: The paper is well written, and the statistical methods are appropriate. The authors clearly explain and present a thorough discussion of the public health relevance.

Reviewer #2: In this manuscript, West Nile Virus notifications and other surveillance information are combined with rainfall and temperature to model existing real human notification data and then explore the effect of a two degree F mean monthly temperature increase on future human West Nile Virus cases in high transmission regions of California. The approach is generally interesting and potentially useful. As a non-statistician I would like more and clearer explanations of GEE and zero inflated models, what they are and how to understand the difference.

Please also consider the following questions that came to mind while reading the manuscript

1) how sensitive are your models to the assumptions you have made (restricting data examined to just 6 years) ?

2) did you explore other temperature scenarios besides 2 degrees? It might have made an interesting addition to look at 1, 1.5, 2 2.5 and 3 (for example) and see if a linear or non linear relationship emerges

3) could you consider monthly humidity data which may also effect mosquito survival?

4) some language is not quite scientific and should be revised to be more neutral eg : "mountains of data" "incredibly important"

--------------------

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.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Figure 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. 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 us at figures@plos.org.

Data Requirements:

Please note that, as a condition of publication, PLOS' data policy requires that you make available all data used to draw the conclusions outlined in your manuscript. Data must be deposited in an appropriate repository, included within the body of the manuscript, or uploaded as supporting information. This includes all numerical values that were used to generate graphs, histograms etc.. For an example see here: http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1001908#s5.

Reproducibility:

To enhance the reproducibility of your results, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io, where a protocol can be assigned its own identifier (DOI) such that it can be cited independently in the future. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option to publish peer-reviewed clinical study protocols. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols

References

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.

Dear Mr. Parker,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript 'Exploring the role of temperature and other environmental factors in West Nile virus incidence and prediction in California counties from 2017-2022 using a zero-inflated model' has been provisionally accepted for publication in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

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

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.

Should you, your institution's press office or the journal office choose to press release your paper, you will automatically be opted out of early publication. We ask that you notify us now if you or your institution is planning to press release the article. All press must be co-ordinated with PLOS.

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

Best regards,

Richard A. Bowen

Academic Editor

PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases

Mabel Carabali

Section Editor

PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases

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

Thank you for the thoughtful revisions of your manuscript. I believe the modifications you made based on reviewer comments has improved your submission.