PONE-D-20-23001

Impacts of a sugar sweetened beverage tax on body mass index and obesity in Thailand: a modelling study

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr.   Payao Phonsuk  

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.

I have now received 2 reviews of your MS which has been submitted to PloS One. Both reviewers have indicated scientific merit in the MS as submitted, but indicate the need for further ere visons before it is acceptable for publication. Both reviewers recommend proofreading, including an English language check, and reference check. In addition, both reviewers raise concerns about the analysis applied.  and the second reviewer about the underlying assumptions in relation to Thai taxation in relation to sugar tax.

If you are willing to revise the MS prior to publication, please address the following issues in particular, as well as all recomm3endations made by the reviewers.

1. The need to proof-read the paper thoroughly, including an English language check

2.  Application of MANOVA to check for significant age effects (Reviewer 1)

3/. Details about the Thai sugar tax regime (Reviewer 2)

4. Provide a more detailed discussion regarding the implications of your findings, in particular in relation to practical policy implications.

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Lynn Jayne Frewer, MSc PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments:

I have now received 2 reviews of your MS which has been submitted to PloS One. Both reviewers have indicated scientific merit in the MS as submitted, but indicate the need for further ere visons before it is acceptable for publication. Both reviewers recommend proofreading, including an English language check, and reference check. In addition, both reviewers raise concerns about the analysis applied. and the second reviewer about the underlying assumptions in relation to Thai taxation in relation to sugar tax.

If you are willing to revise the MS prior to publication, please address the following issues in particular, as well as all recomm3endations made by the reviewers.

1. The need to proof-read the paper thoroughly, including an English language check

2. Application of MANOVA to check for significant age effects (Reviewer 1)

3/. Details about the Thai sugar tax regime (Reviewer 2)

4. Provide a more detailed discussion regarding the implications of your findings, in particular in relation to practical policy implications.

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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: Partly

Reviewer #2: Partly

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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: No

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

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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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: In is an interesting article that could help in policies to reduce the prevalence of obesity. Overall the manuscript is well written but need several improvements:

1. Results.

- Comparison were made between men and women as well as different age groups for all data but there have been no mention whether the differences were significant or not. There was a mention about differences in energy intake across age groups but no mention about the effect of age groups for the other data/variables. Does this mean for the other data/variables, there were no effect of ages?. If the model do not provide significant tests, it is suggested to carry out MANOVA or at least ANOVA to test whether the differences are significant.

- Sensitivity analysis in page 14, line 229-237 should be combined with the similar topics in page 10.

- Add a note below the Table for shortforms that has not been mentioned before. Eg. CI

2. Discussions.

- It is suggested to add implications of the findings.

- Line 248, list the references for the other studies.

3. Need minor proof reading of English.

Reviewer #2: This is yet another modeling study evaluating the impact of SSB tax on obesity. There have been similar modeling studies published in the past. The advantage of this study is that it provides the exercise from a LMIC--Thailand.

However, I have some major and minor concerns as followed.

Major

1. Regarding the actual Thai tax regime, what is the total(calculate) tax rate in each level? These actual tax rate should be used as the based model to explain the real situation of your country. The 20% tax rate as WHO recommended can be used as a scenario to show the discrepancy between the real situation and the recommendation. Moreover, the recent study in Thailand, Markchang et al(2019) showed the evidences of actual SSB price changes and SSB sugar content change. This evidences need to be consider in the model. This might explain the real pass-on rate and the calories from sugar content in SSB as well.

All other scenario which the authors used sensitivity analysis are acceptable to show the uncertainty and compliment the model.

2. The SSB tax has already been introduced in Thailand since 2017. This is possible already enough time to change consumption rates. If you can find the recent consumption data after the tax implementation, this might be reasonable and more reliable than assuming on price elasticity.

Minor

1. Please check the accuracy of all your references and revise, i.e. ref#7 and #8 in line 51-54.

2. The manuscript is in need of proofreading and correct some typo and grammatical error, i.e. line 79, line 225. Please also make it's consistent between the word "obesity" and "overweight" which one you really mean to.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Impacts of a sugar sweetened beverage tax on body mass index and obesity in Thailand: a modelling study

PONE-D-20-23001R1

Dear Dr.Phonsuk  

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,

Lynn Jayne Frewer, MSc PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE