https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0811-9981
Peer Review History
| Original SubmissionApril 12, 2020 |
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PONE-D-20-10544 Determinants of Stunting among Infants Aged 0-11 Months in a Borderline Area of Indonesia: Evidence from Sambas longitudinal study on Maternal and Child Nutrition, Indonesia PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Meiyetriani, 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 Nov 01 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. Please include the following items when submitting your revised 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, Calistus Wilunda, DrPH Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and 2. Please include additional information regarding the survey or questionnaire used in the study and ensure that you have provided sufficient details that others could replicate the analyses. For instance, if you developed a questionnaire as part of this study and it is not under a copyright more restrictive than CC-BY, please include a copy, in both the original language and English, as Supporting Information. In addition, please provide further details of the pre-testing of this questionnaire, for example the number of participants and where they were recruited from. 3. Please refrain from stating p values as 0.000, either report the exact value or employ the format p<0.001. 4. We note that you have indicated that data from this study are available upon request. PLOS only allows data to be available upon request if there are legal or ethical restrictions on sharing data publicly. For information on unacceptable data access restrictions, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-unacceptable-data-access-restrictions. In your revised cover letter, please address the following prompts: a) If there are ethical or legal restrictions on sharing a de-identified data set, please explain them in detail (e.g., data contain potentially identifying or sensitive patient information) and who has imposed them (e.g., an ethics committee). Please also provide contact information for a data access committee, ethics committee, or other institutional body to which data requests may be sent. b) If there are no restrictions, please upload the minimal anonymized data set necessary to replicate your study findings as either Supporting Information files or to a stable, public repository and provide us with the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers. Please see http://www.bmj.com/content/340/bmj.c181.long for guidelines on how to de-identify and prepare clinical data for publication. For a list of acceptable repositories, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-recommended-repositories. We will update your Data Availability statement on your behalf to reflect the information you provide. 5. Please include your tables as part of your main manuscript and remove the individual files. Please note that supplementary tables should be uploaded as separate "supporting information" files. Additional Editor Comments: The background section of the abstract is too long and the objective is not clear. The article is too lengthy and there is plenty of room to make it concise. In the methods section, please write in a continuous prose. In lines 143-147, mention the data collected first and then instrument used. Information on the parameters finally used the estimate the sample size should be stated in the text. Additional considerations in sample size calculation may be included in a supplemental table. The analysis should account for the survey design, particularly the cluster sampling design. Consider including some tables as supplemental files or combining some tables. In the Results section, present the findings without interpretation (as done for example on lines 233-234) stunting. The entire manuscript needs to be edited for English grammar. For example, there is a mixture of present and future tense in the Methods section, which is inappropriate. In the statistical analysis section, describe the interactions assessed and rationale behind this. Use “multivariable analysis” instead of “multivariate analysis”. In Table 2, combine categories with few subjects. Consider re-categorizing “age of child bearing” as subjected in the aged <18 years are very few. Dichotomising this variable results into loss of information, so you can use more than two categories or even analyse it as a continuous variable. In Table 13, present the adjusted OR, p value and 95% CI. The CI has upper and lower bounds, not min and max. Show the reference category as you have done in the crude analysis. State the variables adjusted for in a footnote. Ensure that you are not adjusting for variables on the causal pathway. Clarify the study design. [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: Yes Reviewer #2: Partly Reviewer #3: Partly ********** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: Yes ********** 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 Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: No ********** 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: No Reviewer #2: No Reviewer #3: No ********** 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 paper. The study seeks to model the factors that predict stunting in younger children 0-11 months in the Sambas district, Indonesia. The study idea is useful for targeting this younger group (0-11 months) as many similar studies will focus on 6-59 month old children. But it suffers a number of methodological and reporting problems that need to be addressed. Details below. Major comments: 1) the authors refer to the study design as longitudinal but none of the text demonstrate or support a prospective design or analysis. There was a repeat cross-sectional study at best the design used. If this is a longitudinal study, then many questions arise. There should be data on the incidence of stunting and how that was possibly measured and the use of logistic regression will not be appropriate. The authors should detail to clarify the design used. 2) While the this age group (0-11 months) may be of interest, what additional factors has this study identified which will add to the existing literature of child stunting in this group? Additional comments: Abstract- page 1, lines 18-20; this sentence should be revised to be clear. Page 2: lines 32-36; some factors (maternal height and preterm birth) have very wide confidence intervals including the null value. Explain why these may still be important while others were dropped from the multivariable model based on p-values and not effect estimates. Page 2; lines 37-39: The conclusion is not very informative, revise to identify (to policy makers) which factors are important and a possible way to address them to impact stunting (in a few lines based on your results). Background section- page 3, lines 44-45; stunting may be a problem of global concern but not a problem globally (not all settings have stunting, revise please). Page 3, line 57; do authors mean 11.9 percent or percentage points? These are different and neither is correct as used (revise). Page 4, lines 78-79; this point is already made. Materials and methods- page 5, lines 91-98; include a reference to any previous studies from the bigger study that describe the methods in detail. Otherwise please provide details to clarify what design has been used. At present, a repeat cross-section is implied. Pages 8-10; this table has no number and not referred in the text. Many definitions in the table will need a reference so may be useful to describe them in the text and provide the relevant citations. Example: definition for knowledge on stunting as presented in the table is questionable how you measured this. Classification of undernutrition (stunting etc) follow WHO definition and must be referenced. Page 11-12; the statistical analysis section should be revised to clarify the modelling approach. If some factors were considered ‘a priori’ as potential confounders from the literature, they must be included in the model without basing their inclusion on a p-value criterion. Authors should also provide the citations to the previous studies that provided evidence for some factors to be considered potential confounders (lines 197-198). Discussion: I think the discussion can be revised to reduce emphasis on general factors that were not associated in the present study. It is important to explain what your results mean. For example, low birth weight was a strong predictor for child stunting, what can be done about it and what shows that has any impact? Conclusion: pages 29-30 (lines 589-618): this is a very long conclusion section which should be reduced to a few lines which summarizes your main findings and possibly recommendations arising (revise). Tables: I think there are too many small and related tables that can be put together to improve the reading. For example, data in tables 6, 7, 8 and 9 can be combined into a single table. Table 5 can go into the supplementary materials. Tables 2 and 4 can also be combined into a single table. Thank you. Reviewer #2: I have read the paper with great interest. Overall the manuscript could benefit from a thorough technical editorial to ensure coherence, well summarized content and readability. The longitudinal design of the study is not clearly described. Details of the parent study are not well reflected. While details of the cross sectional survey undertaken are provided, it is difficult to draw the link between this survey conducted in 2017 and the bigger study conducted in the Sambas district. There lack of sufficient details on the follow-up between the two studies. Some specific comments are outlined below : Line 47: Add reference to support statement alluded to on impact of stunting on development of nations. Line 48: Suggest adding reference on the global and regional prevalence estimates of stunting. Latest prevalence estimates are available @ https://data.unicef.org/resources/jme-report-2020/ [United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), World Health Organization, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank. Levels and trends in child malnutrition: Key Findings of the 2020 Edition of the Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2020. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.] Line 49 -52: Spotlight on the Americas and European region not necessary, suggest deleting. Line 52 – 55: The discussion on insufficient progress in global stunting reductions is not well situated. Suggest the authors revise as follows: First introduce the global stunting targets, current progress – globally, regionally and in Indonesia. The WHO global tracking tool on the WHA nutrition targets can provide some useful background data https://extranet.who.int/nhdtargets/en/Stunting. Also the UNICEF, WHO, World Bank Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates (2020) edition. Line 65-66: Rural areas in Indonesia will have a better chance at improvement under what conditions? Not clear from the way the sentence is phrased. Line 67-69: sentence requires some editing in order to clearly convey its message. Line 70-71: Sentence not clear. What does this sentence mean “Then from the result, there will be a question about the baby of mothers who included in the study.” Line 79-81: Sentence not clear. Line 78-82: This section could benefit from re-writing to clearly communicate rationale for the study. Sentences are not well formulated. Line 89: Materials and Methods: this paper could benefit from a brief description of the study design and population of the parent longitudinal study including the study procedures and follow-up done since it is a longitudinal design. What were the interventions provided in the parent study? Line 109: Area and time of the study: Timeframe for the study appears very short. Was this a cross sectional survey? In line 112 – there seems to be an error in the reflection of dates for the data collection. Line 117: which previous study. For clarity please mention. The longitudinal design of the study is not very clear and there is lack of details on the systematic follow-up period. Line 138: were the villages chosen using probability proportional to size sampling at the first stage of sampling? What were the sampling units at the second stage of sampling? Was it any households or households with pregnant women? The sampling procedure needs to be more clearly articulated. Line 152: How did the study address information bias especially in dealing with missing information during interviews? Line 163: Were some of these variables (e.g Maternal Anemia during pregnancy, Maternal CED risk during Pregnancy, Knowledge during pregnancy etc) assessed from records from parent study or they were measured during this particular survey described in the paper? It is not very clear which variables were directly measured and which variables for which data was already available from previous study. Line 186 – 192: suggest writing in past tense Line 197: suggest highlighting the potential confounders which were considered. Line 209 – 211: Background on Sambas district should be moved to the background or materials/methods section. Line 256: 73.3 % children had Child Vitamin A supplementation. Is this referring to infants 6-11 months? Line 297 – 298 : frequent episodes of wasting can also predispose infants and young children to increased risks of stunted growth. Line 286: Discussion : I think there is scope to restructure the discussion while keeping it focused on the key findings related to the research question to prospectively evaluate the associations between pre- and postnatal conditions and stunting among infants aged 0–11 months. This should be the main focus of the discussion. Followed by discussions situating the findings within the broader global literature including other similar studies in Indonesia. From the discussion its not very clear which associations discussed are simply from bivariate analysis and which ones were found significant in multivariate analysis. This makes the discussion in its current state weak. The conclusions from this study are also not very clear. Line 300 – 321 discusses “Exposure to Information and Knowledge”. Did the study find this to be an important determinant? Also comment applies to “ Neonatal Examination and Health Care Utilization”. Suggest focusing the discussion on the key determinants. Reviewer #3: Title: The title is too long and its length needs to be reduced. o For example: “Prenatal and postnatal determinants of stunting at age 0-11 months: A cross-sectional study in Indonesia” Abstract: • Background: o Too long, as it includes information that should go into the methods section. o For example, following the sentence ………. adult life, authors could simply write: “we conducted a longitudinal study on maternal and child nutrition to assess/investigate factors associated with stunting among infants aged 0-11 months in Indonesia” • Methods: o It is not clear how this was a longitudinal study. o Did the study enroll pregnant women in 2016? If yes, how many and what was the gestational age at enrollment? o Did the 2017 survey include the same mothers who were previously enrolled in the study in 2016 and infants born from those index pregnancies? o When was the anthropometric data collected? • Results: o Authors should always report both the percentage and the corresponding number (n). o Authors should also report on the key characteristics of studied mothers and children before reporting on the factors associated with stunting. o “Furthermore, children who weighed <2.500 g at birth had the strongest association with stunting”. Authors should consider deleting this sentence from the results section and probably put it into the conclusion, as it looks like the interpretation of the already reported result. • Conclusion: o This section should be improved. Authors are responsible for interpreting the key findings from this study and thereby suggest (what) interventions (by who?) to address the problems identified to be associated with stunting in infancy (0-11 months). Manuscript: • Methods: o Major comment: This study was not a longitudinal study, as the outcome of interest (stunting) was only measured at one time-point. This was a cross-sectional study with some retrospective data during pregnancy. o Authors’ calculations indicated that a sample n=492 (lines 129-135) was sufficient to conduct this study. But, was this the number of children or mothers? Was it necessary to calculate a sample size if this was a follow up survey that should include all subjects found? o In the sampling procedure (lines 137-142), authors state that 30 villages were randomly sampled, but out of how many? Why 30 villages? Why did you have to sample? o Instruments (lines 143-150), this should be part of the data collection procedure, and authors should avoid repetition. o Variables and operational definition: � Minimum dietary diversity and acceptable diet – as this study only included infants aged 0-11 months, how did you categorize children under 6 months of age? � Minimum meal frequency – what was the minimum number of meals? And how did you classify under 6 months infants? � Household food security: It’s good to provide the general definition of food security, but how did authors define “household food security” in this particular study? � How was good/poor knowledge of IYCF defined? o Data quality assurance – how was it possible to check for under- and/or over-reporting in dietary diversity data during data cleaning? Please explain! o Data collection period – Is it April 2nd – May 17, 2017? o Statistical analysis: � Please use the past tense. � Is it true that the multivariable model included variables with a p>0.25 in bivariate analysis? Please double-check if it was not a typo! � Please clarify the unit of analysis for this study! Is it children/mothers? � Child age and sex are factors that have been consistently found to be associated with stunting and should be forced into the final logistic regression model regardless of their p-values. • Results: o Lines 209-212. This paragraph should go under the “study settings” in the Methods. o Please avoid interpretation of results in the “Results section” (example, lines 233-234). All interpretations should go under the “Discussion section”. o It is surprising that the results’ section focused on participants’ characteristics rather than reporting on the key findings (factors associated with stunting) in line with the study objectives. Lines 281-284, please include the odds ratio to highlight the adjusted effect size of each factor on stunting. o The number of tables (13) is more than acceptable for a research article. Please consider reducing the number of tables: � Authors could use a cross-tabulation for: � Table 2: Child characteristics and stunting � Table 3: Maternal/Caregiver characteristics and stunting � Table 4: Household characteristics and stunting � Table 5: Multivariable logistic regression model results o Old Table 5 is not needed. A composite variable for “Good/poor knowledge of IYCF” should only be reported in the new suggested table (Table 3). o Results’ tables should only include data on participants who were found in the 2017 survey. Therefore, the sample size should be less or equal to 500 (n≤500). • Discussion: o A classical discussion should focus on the key findings in terms of prenatal and postnatal factors associated with stunting in the multivariable logistic regression analysis. Authors should avoid discussing anything which is not supported by the findings of this study. o A stunting rate of 22.5% among children aged 6-11 months was very high, and worth discussing. o Study limitations: � Lines 583-584. What do you mean by the technical error? � Second, authors said in the methods that a sample size, n=492 was sufficient to conduct this study. Fortunately, 500 children were found for this study, so how does this become a limitation? o Conclusions: � Conclusions should be based on the findings of this study. Authors are responsible for suggesting solutions. ********** 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: Zakari Ali Reviewer #2: No Reviewer #3: Yes: Alphonse Nshimyiryo [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.
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| Revision 1 |
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PONE-D-20-10544R1 Prenatal and postnatal determinants of stunting at age 0–11 months: A cross-sectional study in Indonesia PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Meiyetriani, 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 use this opportunity to revise the entire manuscript for grammatical errors and clarity. Please submit your revised manuscript by Feb 20 2021 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. Please include the following items when submitting your revised 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, Calistus Wilunda, DrPH Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (if provided): Heading: Consider replacing “stunting at 1 age 0–11 months” with “stunting among children aged 0–11 months” The statistical analysis section still needs to be improved. The first paragraph under Statistical analysis is not well written and there is plenty of room for improvement. Please pay attention to the logical steps in data analysis. For example, Mantel–Haenszel analysis is usually done before multivariable logistic regression. Line 180: What is the difference between “participant’s characteristics” and “variables included in this study”? This sentence “To analyze normal distribution of data, the Kolmogorov–Smirnov Z test was used with a cut off point p < 0.05” does not make sense. Which variables were assessed? What is the meaning of “analyze normal distribution”? You mention that “Mantel–Haenszel analysis was performed to control for confounding.” It is not clear which confounding variables were adjusted for. Moreover, M-H methods can only adjust for one variable. Where are results of this analysis? I think you used multivariable logistic regression to adjust for confounding. Use of M-H methods is insufficient to adjust for confounding by many factors. Table 2 heading: replace “conditions” with “characteristics” As mentioned in my previous comments, collapse some categories with few cases (for example ethnicity). Table 2: Delete the subheading “Economic Condition”. For household income and expenditure, it is unclear whether you have presented frequencies and percentages or medians. For example, this “≥2,000,000* (median)” is not clear. Present odds ratios with 95% CIs to 2 decimal points. Since you have indicated the exact p values, there is no need to include the footnote “*=significant p<0.05”. This footnote is redundant. In the tables, P values of 0.000 should be written as <0.001. This has already been pointed out by one of the reviewers. In multivariable analysis, indicate what has been adjusted for what. You can do this under statistical analysis or in the footnotes of the tables. Note that low birth weight is an obvious mediator between maternal/household characteristics and stunting, therefore it should not be adjusted for when assessing the effect of these factors on stunting. For example, anemia during pregnancy → Low birth weight →Stunting. In this case, stunting is on the causal pathway and should not be adjusted for. In the stunting column in the tables, you can write Stunted with the options of Yes and No. Alternatively, simply indicate the % stunted. This will make the table neater. In the table headings, please write “Association between A and B. For example, Table 3. “Association between characteristics of children and stunting” In the discussion, delete the subheading “Key Findings” because the text under this subheading goes beyond that. Overall, the manuscript should be proofread to ensure it meets the journal’s English language requirements. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] 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: (No Response) Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed ********** 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 Reviewer #3: Partly ********** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #3: 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 Reviewer #3: 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: No Reviewer #3: 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: The authors have addressed most of my earlier concerns well. I have a few other minor comments for their consideration. 1. Abstract, line30; <2.500g, should be checked and written correctly (<2500g or <2.500kg). 2. Methods section, statistical analysis: The bivariate analysis are described well. Authors should add some details about the multivariable modelling performed. Did authors perform only Mantel-Haenszel (MH) analysis for controlling confounding? Clarify which factors are adjusted in the reported adjusted odds ratios. I think the MH analysis is less suitable to handle beyond 3 variables in a single model. If logistic regression was used, please describe this in the methods. 3. Page 27, line 304: references 18 and 19 need a comma separation. Reviewer #3: Many congratulations to authors - so much effort has been made to improve this paper!! However, there are still remaining minor comments which I hope addressing them can make the paper look even better. 1. Please revise the abstract's conclusion, where you say that ONLY postnatal factors were significantly associated with stunting and none of the prenatal factors was statistically associated with stunting. In your logistic regression model, factors associated with stunting included low birth weight, a result from the intra-uterine growth restriction and it should be considered as a pre-natal factor. 2. The manuscript overall conclusion is vague - and this conclusion is not supported by the results. Authors say that several prenatal and postnatal factors were significantly associated with stunting, while only three factors (LBW, diarrhea and complete immunization) were important? ********** 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 Reviewer #3: Yes: Alphonse Nshimyiryo [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. |
| Revision 2 |
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PONE-D-20-10544R2 Prenatal and postnatal determinants of stunting among children aged 0–11 months: A cross-sectional study in Indonesia PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Meiyetriani, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. Peer review for this manuscript is now complete. However, there are still minor issues that should be addressed before the manuscript can be accepted for publication.
“Categorical data will be applied in a frequency table to display its frequency and percentage. Numeric data will also be reported as mean scores and standard deviations if the collected data is normally distributed. Meanwhile, if the collected data is not normally distributed, it will be presented as median and minimal-maximum value”
Please submit your revised manuscript by Apr 09 2021 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. Please include the following items when submitting your revised 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, Calistus Wilunda, DrPH Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] [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. |
| Revision 3 |
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PONE-D-20-10544R3 Prenatal and postnatal determinants of stunting among children aged 0–11 months: A cross-sectional study in Indonesia PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Meiyetriani, Thank you for submitting your revised manuscript to PLOS ONE. Unfortunately, the manuscript cannot be accepted as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript after addressing the following minor issues. My previous comments were not adequately addressed. It is insufficient to say that you have revised the manuscript without stating how/where you revised or which change you made. Please include a clean copy and a copy with tracked changes. It is difficult to see where you made changes. Although you have mentioned in the footnotes that you adjusted for child, maternal and household characteristics, this is too generic and will not inform the readers which specific variables you adjusted for. Although birth weight should not be adjusted for because it is an intermediate variable, it can be assessed in a separate model as an independent predictor of stunting. The manuscript still has grammatical/spelling errors. It seems like new errors were introduced during English editing. For example, May was changed to mei (lines 99, 185), which is incorrect. Please review the entire manuscript for grammatical errors/typos. Change the sub-heading “Population and Subject” to “Study Population and Subjects”. In the previous version, this was written in continuous prose, which I think was a better format than the revised one. Some statements in the methods are still in the future tense. For example this statement under the Statistical analysis section “Meanwhile, if the collected data were not normally distributed, it will be presented as median and minimal-maximum value.” Also, note that the median is usually presented with an interquartile range. Check the tense in these sentences too: “Using pairwise deletion, the number of cases will vary. It will be the number of cases where both variables in the correlation are present”. The second sentence is not clear. What will be? This statement is still not clear “Categorical data were applied in a frequency table to display its frequency and percentage.” You could say you summarized categorical data using frequencies and percentages, or something like that. Use “multivariable analysis” instead of “multivariate analysis” “A significant association was determined at a p value <0.05, at α = 5%.” What is the difference between the two values? α = 5% seems like a repetition. Consider whether you need this statement because you have stated on line 197/198 that “For all tests, a P-value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.” Please submit your revised manuscript by May 28 2021 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. Please include the following items when submitting your revised 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. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Calistus Wilunda, DrPH Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] [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. |
| Revision 4 |
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Prenatal and postnatal determinants of stunting among children aged 0–11 months: A cross-sectional study in Indonesia PONE-D-20-10544R4 Dear Dr. Meiyetriani, 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, Calistus Wilunda, DrPH Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: |
| Formally Accepted |
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PONE-D-20-10544R4 Prenatal and postnatal determinants of stunting at age 0–11 months: A cross-sectional study in Indonesia Dear Dr. Meiyetriani: 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. Calistus Wilunda Academic Editor PLOS ONE |
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