PONE-D-20-29506

Trends in, and projections of under-5 mortality (U5M) in Bangladesh: effects of maternal high-risk fertility behaviors and healthcare service utilization on U5M.

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Islam,

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Academic Editor

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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: While the statistical analysis is comprehensive, the manuscript requires extensive language editing- which affects the overall readability of the manuscript.

As an example: line 78 '....South Asian countries that placing it in the 3rd 78 positioned country after Pakistan' should probably read

'....South Asian countries which places it in the third position after Pakistan'. There are several other instances of incomplete and and ungrammatical sentences, for example line 79, 90, 92, 140-142 all in the introduction require language editing.

Other than that, the manuscript is sound.

Reviewer #2: In the present work entitled “Trends in, and projections of under-5 mortality (U5M) in Bangladesh: effects of maternal high-risk fertility behaviors and healthcare service utilization on U5M”, authors presented important aspects with sound analytical explanations for the policymakers. Here, the authors projected the under-5 mortality (U5M) in Bangladesh and explored its associations with maternal high-risk fertility behaviors and utilization of available healthcare services. The authors presented a very sound analytical piece of work, and then justified its significance using the real-life application.

I have a major concern, which needs to be addressed in the manuscript.

In line no. 152, authors used the information obtained from the women that “Did you give birth to any children within five years”. In the situations of twins and multiple births within 5 years, how the additional information “Is the child alive?” addresses the living status of children.

Authors should elaborate their explanations of outcome variables for a more practical situation and also how the model incorporated those aspects.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Annah Bengesai

Reviewer #2: No

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Trends and projections of under-5 mortality in Bangladesh including the effects of maternal high-risk fertility behaviours and use of healthcare services

PONE-D-20-29506R1

Dear Dr. Islam,

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,

Russell Kabir, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: