PONE-D-20-04207

30-year trends in major cardiovascular risk factors in the Czech population, Czech MONICA and Czech post-MONICA, 1985 – 2016/17

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Cífková,

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PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately 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?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). 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 ONE 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: No

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: March 5, 2020

Re; PONE-D-20-04207

Dear editor,

Thank you for the opportunity to review the manuscript entitled, 30-year trends in major cardiovascular risk factors in the Czech population, Czech MONICA and Czech post-MONICA, 1985 – 2016/17, by authors Cífková et al.

I have no conflicts to report. I am not a population epidemiologist and do not have an extensive background in this type of data analysis.

I applaud the efforts of the authors for trying to analyze dynamic trends among the Czech population over the 30-year study period, amidst a huge change in politics and lifestyle. Population studies are fraught with many variables and the authors point out variability in response rates during the study period. Still there is value in reporting trends.

The POS ONE criteria for publication include:

The article is presented in an intelligible fashion and is written in standard English.

The content and use of verbal tense need to be reworked. The present tense should be avoided and replaced with the passive or past tense. (many sentences contain both the present and past tense.) I am not sure who is responsible for this type of editing. The discussion needs to be rewritten.

Typo’s:

Page 10: paragraph 2, line 4. Change ‘claims’ to ‘has claimed’

Page 10: paragraph 2, line 5. Change ‘is a growing’ to ‘has been a growing’

Page 16: paragraph 1, line 5. Change ‘one’ to ‘groups’

Page 16: paragraph 2, line 4. Change ‘one’ to ‘group’

Page 19: paragraph 2, line 10. Change ‘Fat of animal origin were’ to ‘Animal dietary fats were’

Page 20: first line is confusing and should be re-written.

Discussion needs to be rewritten.

Thus in its current form, I cannot recommend publication.

Reviewer #2: I found this article to be very informative and well written.

Minor comment

The graph shown in Figure 1E gives the impression of upward trend of HDL-C values in females, from 1992 to 2017. However, the temporary downward trend in 2001 (only in age groups 45-65 years) seems to be an unexpected observation. It would be useful to explain it.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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30-year trends in major cardiovascular risk factors in the Czech population, Czech MONICA and Czech post-MONICA, 1985 – 2016/17

PONE-D-20-04207R1

Dear Dr. Cífková,

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

Within one week, you will receive an e-mail containing information on the amendments required prior to publication. When all required modifications have been addressed, you will receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will proceed to our production department and be scheduled for publication.

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With kind regards,

Tatsuo Shimosawa, M.D., Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

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: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: I Don't Know

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). 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 ONE 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: The authors have corrected grammatical errors.

Their questionnaire consisted of "yes/no' answers and thus they did not quantify data i.e., smokers (cig/day). I think they could have made more powerful statements about diet/smoking habits as they related to political changes. None the less they have pointed out interesting trends in the Czech population over time.

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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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.

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