PONE-D-21-00225

Trends in malaria prevalence and risk factors associated with the disease in Nkongho-Mbeng; a typical rural setting in the equatorial rainforest of the South West Region of Cameroon

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. NYASA,

After careful consideration, we feel that your manuscript will likely be suitable for publication if the authors revise it to address critical points raised by the reviewer.  According to reviewer, there are some specific areas where further improvements would be of substantial benefit to the readers.   A major concern was related to the multicollinearity in the  regression analyses.  For your guidance, a copy of the reviewer' comments was included below.  

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Luzia Helena Carvalho, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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5. Please ensure you have thoroughly discussed any potential limitations of this study within the Discussion section, including the potential impact of confounding factors.

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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

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

Reviewer #1: 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

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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: 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: This is a well-done and important contribution to the malaria literature. Updating the epidemiological profile of malaria prevalence is important for prioritizing control and prevention activities, and this study provides results that are useful for informing prevention and control. I have a few minor items I would like the authors to address:

1. Including a map showing the study area would be helpful to the reader.

2. It would be useful for the authors to address the possibility of multicollinearity in the multiple regression analyses between income level and variables associated with income level (housing structure, window screens, etc). Was multicollinearity assessed, and is it something that needs to be addressed? This is the most important comment I have.

3. Consider eliminating the p-values in tables 1 and 2 for the regression results. The 95% confidence intervals are the most important to include, and p-values are not as meaningful.

4. I found the high infant prevalence to be interesting. The authors addressed the role of no built immunity as a reason for higher prevalence in this age group, which is an appropriate explanation. I am curious about the sleeping habits of infants in the study areas in relation to LLIN use- do infants typically sleep with a guardian? Is it known whether infants typically sleep under LLINs?

5. In figure 7, consider using the same type of figure to maintain consistency (either use all pie charts or all bar graphs)

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Reviewer #1: No

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Trends in malaria prevalence and risk factors associated with the disease in Nkongho-mbeng; a typical rural setting in the equatorial rainforest of the South West Region of Cameroon

PONE-D-21-00225R1

Dear Dr. NYASA,

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.

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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,

Luzia Helena Carvalho, 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

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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

**********

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

Reviewer #1: 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

**********

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

**********

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: I commend the authors for addressing the reviewer comments, and I am thankful for the reminder that p-values can be more useful to a broader audience. This is an excellent perspective that I will keep in mind myself moving forward in my own work. Additionally, the map is wonderful! Great work to the authors.

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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