PONE-D-20-19899

Availability and factors influencing community level handwashing facility in Ethiopia: An implication for prevention of infectious diseases

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Odo,

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.<>Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 25 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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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Khin Thet Wai, MBBS, MPH, MA (Population & Family Planning Resear

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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2. Thank you for stating in the text of your manuscript "The survey was approved by the National Research Ethics Review Committee of Ethiopia and ORC Macro Institutional. Authors got permission from ICF-DHS program to use the DHS data and accessed through ‘" ext-link-type="uri" xlink:type="simple">https://www.dhsprogram.com/data/dataset_admin/login_main.cfm’." Please also add this information to your ethics statement in the online submission form.

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Reviewers' comments:

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Comments to the Author

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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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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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: Thank you for the opportunity to review this manuscript. Good paper, excellent study. This research is timely and fills a gap in the knowledge base and is worth of publication. Prior to publication, the article will require a careful editorial review for formatting and clarity, but most importantly the authors need to address potential bias and error that one must grapple with when dealing with large data sets. Specifically, very large data sets can lead to determine that a difference exists when it fact it does not.If there is a potential design flaw, such as missing IVs or other unknown characteristics of the sample, the effects of unknown contributors to the model are amplified as the data becomes larger. In the discussion, please consider limitations (in the limitations section) to the study and whether there are unknown characteristics that might potentially

Line 140, under Independent variable section, delete the extra “l” in Below.

Line 229 delete the space in “percent”. Also in line 306

Reviewer #2: 1.Title: I would recommend deletion of the word ‘an’ to read: Availability and factors influencing community level handwashing facility in Ethiopia: implication for prevention of infectious diseases

2.Introduction: I would recommend the use more recent literature in the introduction. I believe there more recent literature that can replace references 1, 4,5 and 6 [e.g. review by Willmott, M et al 2015]

3.Methods: Line 115 I would recommend deletion of the word “recent” and instead say… formed in 2007

4.Results:

i.The concepts of hot and cold spots used in line 173 page 10 need to be defined

ii.Table 3 appearing on page 10-12 may need to be reduced or formatted to fit in one page in its current format, it difficult to follow

iii.On page 10, line 182, the 54.81% of household heads with no formal education; it is not clear what the denominator is. Are we referring to the female headed household or the total sample

5.Discussion: The discussion section is well written, however:

i.This section would flow better if the authors started by summarizing the key results before starting the implication of the results

ii.I recommend inclusion of a brief discussion on relationship between availability of hand washing facility and household wealth which would allow more balance conclusions and recommendation. As it stands now the authors seem to suggest that improved awareness equals action/behavior (installation of hand washing facility). Although the authors rightfully acknowledge that awareness and knowledge alone are necessary but insufficient for changing behavior.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Review comments-PLOSONE-Global Health_2020.pdf

PONE-D-20-19899R1

Availability and factors influencing community level handwashing facility in Ethiopia: implication for prevention of infectious diseases

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Odo,

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.please by="" manuscript="" revised="" submit="" your=""/please

please by="" manuscript="" revised="" submit="" your=""

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:/please

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic 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'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Khin Thet Wai, MBBS, MPH, MA (Population Family Planning Resear

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

Authors have addressed the comments of reviewers comprehensively.

To strengthen scientific integrity and to uphold the publication standard of the journal, extensive English language editing is necessary.

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[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.

Availability and factors influencing community level handwashing facility in Ethiopia: implication for prevention of infectious diseases

PONE-D-20-19899R2

Dear Dr. Odo,

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.

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Kind regards,

Khin Thet Wai, MBBS, MPH, MA (Population Family Planning Resear

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: