Prevalence and factors associated with food insecurity across an entire campus population

Emilie S. Riddle; Meredith T. Niles; Amy Nickerson

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0237637

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionMarch 17, 2020
12 Jun 2020 Decision Letter - Andrew R. Dalby, Editor PONE-D-20-07580 Prevalence and Factors Associated with Food Insecurity Across an Entire Campus Population PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Niles, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’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. The use of the CHERRIES checklist is important in establishing the limits of the study. Please submit your revised manuscript by Jul 27 2020 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 plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. 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Please include your tables as part of your main manuscript and remove the individual files. Please note that supplementary tables (should remain/ be uploaded) as separate "supporting information" files Additional Editor Comments (if provided): [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] 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: Partly ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? 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Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 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: PONE-D-20-07580 Prevalence and Factors Associated with Food Insecurity Across an Entire Campus Population Thank you for the opportunity to review this paper. The university campus population is emerging as a particularly vulnerable group to food insecurity and as such this paper is adding to the volume of literature on this topic. This paper looks at FI across all staff and students on campus across two time-points Spring and Fall at a US campus. At both times the survey was cross-sectional. It is a very well written paper and the authors should be congratulated on the clarity of expression. The paper is well-referenced and covers most of the relevant literature in the field. The authors highlight that the novelty of this paper is its focus on faculty and staff – beyond this the paper once again re-iterates prevalence rates and some of the already determined contributing factors. Apart from the staff and faculty data there is very little new reported. Specific points that would need to be addressed include: - An international audience will necessarily understand the difference between faculty and staff and this needs to be explained in more depth. - A rationale about why undergraduate, graduate and medical students need to be distinguished needs to be made. - To increase rigour use the CHERRIES checklist to report online surveys. Issues such as the rate of completeness, the mechanisms in place to stop a single individual repeatedly undertaking the survey etc - A total response rate is given against a random sample of 4500 participants who were sent the survey. There is no information on the total population of the university and a more nuanced response rate could be reported indicating the number of faculty/staff that responded, graduate students, medical student, undergraduate students. This would give a better indication of potential bias. - No data is provided on income levels, income sources, housing arrangements or other aspects that are known to directly impact on FI – instead inference is made for example about living on campus vs off campus etc. In other countries living off campus could be protective as they may be living with family members rather than relying on private rentals. The lack of this data really limits the ability to be able to say anything meaningful about the underlying determinants. - Demographic data has been collected but there are no new insights provided beyond what has already been reported in the literature. It is important that new studies of this type begin to beyond prevalence rates and begin to seek a more nuanced understanding of determinants and how these can be rectified to prevent FI amongst this group. ****** 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. 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: Yes: Danielle Gallegos [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. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237637.r001
Revision 1
20 Jul 2020 Author Response Please note the appended below is also included as a file in the file section: Response to Reviewers Dear Editors and Reviewers, Thank you for the thoughtful feedback on our manuscript, which has improved its overall clarity and rigor. Below we detail our response to specific points in bold. Reviewer #1: PONE-D-20-07580 Prevalence and Factors Associated with Food Insecurity Across an Entire Campus Population Thank you for the opportunity to review this paper. The university campus population is emerging as a particularly vulnerable group to food insecurity and as such this paper is adding to the volume of literature on this topic. This paper looks at FI across all staff and students on campus across two time-points Spring and Fall at a US campus. At both times the survey was cross-sectional. It is a very well written paper and the authors should be congratulated on the clarity of expression. The paper is well-referenced and covers most of the relevant literature in the field. The authors highlight that the novelty of this paper is its focus on faculty and staff – beyond this the paper once again re-iterates prevalence rates and some of the already determined contributing factors. Apart from the staff and faculty data there is very little new reported. Specific points that would need to be addressed include: 1. An international audience will necessarily understand the difference between faculty and staff and this needs to be explained in more depth. Response: Excellent point, thank you. We have added language to further distinguish this in the introduction briefly and in the methods more thoroughly. - A rationale about why undergraduate, graduate and medical students need to be distinguished needs to be made. Response: We have added additional clarification and rational for separating out these three types of students in the introduction. - To increase rigour use the CHERRIES checklist to report online surveys. Issues such as the rate of completeness, the mechanisms in place to stop a single individual repeatedly undertaking the survey etc Response: Thank you, we have included some additional details in the methods section related to the CHERRIES checklist. - A total response rate is given against a random sample of 4500 participants who were sent the survey. There is no information on the total population of the university and a more nuanced response rate could be reported indicating the number of faculty/staff that responded, graduate students, medical student, undergraduate students. This would give a better indication of potential bias. Response: The information requested was provided in Supplementary Table 1, which is copied below for reference. Perhaps this was inaccessible to the reviewer, hopefully this is the information that they were seeking. Supplementary Table 1. Margin of error calculations, total response number and campus population of a given demographic group at the time of the survey. Spring 2017 Fall 2017 Demographic Group Margin of Error Response number Campus Population Margin of Error Response number Campus Population Undergraduate 4.07% 547 9786 3.81% 624 10513 Grad 9.35% 102 1406 9.53% 99 1517 Med 13.24% 49 457 16.73% 32 459 Faculty 9.02% 110 1600 9.20% 106 1600 Staff 6.16% 229 2373 5.71% 262 2373 Overall 2.94% 1037 15622 2.82% 1123 16462 - No data is provided on income levels, income sources, housing arrangements or other aspects that are known to directly impact on FI – instead inference is made for example about living on campus vs off campus etc. In other countries living off campus could be protective as they may be living with family members rather than relying on private rentals. The lack of this data really limits the ability to be able to say anything meaningful about the underlying determinants. Response: We did not inquire about income level or sources among the respondents, nor housing arrangements, beyond understanding whether or not undergraduate students were living on or off campus. We appreciate this comment, as we recognize that this does limit our understanding and interpretation of results and would be a useful addition to future surveys and research. We have added this as a limitation of the study in the discussion section. - Demographic data has been collected but there are no new insights provided beyond what has already been reported in the literature. It is important that new studies of this type begin to beyond prevalence rates and begin to seek a more nuanced understanding of determinants and how these can be rectified to prevent FI amongst this group. Response: We agree with this assessment, and have been working in our Food Insecurity Working Group on campus to implement many strategies for food insecurity alleviation, and examining the impact of these interventions. Additional analysis also undergoing on the second survey further explores the role of food agency in food insecurity. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Reviewer Response_PLOS.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237637.r002
31 Jul 2020 Decision Letter - Andrew R. Dalby, Editor Prevalence and Factors Associated with Food Insecurity Across an Entire Campus Population PONE-D-20-07580R1 Dear Dr. Niles, 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. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. 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 onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Andrew R. Dalby, PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237637.r003
Formally Accepted
18 Aug 2020 Acceptance Letter - Andrew R. Dalby, Editor PONE-D-20-07580R1 Prevalence and Factors Associated with Food Insecurity Across an Entire Campus Population Dear Dr. Niles: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Andrew R. Dalby Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237637.r004

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