PONE-D-21-16964

Is BMI associated with anemia and hemoglobin level of women and children in Bangladesh: A study with multiple statistical approach

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Kamruzzaman,

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Enamul Kabir

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

Reviewer #3: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: 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

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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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

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: 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: The manuscript was brilliantly written, the objectives of the research were met. Manuscript has intelligently communicated to the readers But I would appreciate if the authors give more clarification to the statistical test used for analyzing the correlation between haemoglobin level of the women (according to their pregnancy status) and their BMI categories. I would suggest that Two-way ANOVA test is more appropriate than One-Way ANOVA because you are dealing with two dependent variables that have more three categories.

Secondly, in discussion column, the correlation between risk of being anemic and wealth. I need the authors to clarify what factor was used to determine the level of wealth among the research participants, is the amount of income earned or their lifestyles? I believe the amount of income earned is a more appropriate factor compared to the level of wealth.If these concerns raised are addressed, I believe the manuscript is good for acceptance by the editorial board. Once again, the authors did brilliantly

Reviewer #2: The study is an important addition to the already existing knowledge on BMI, anemia and hemoglobin level in women and children as it aimed to establish the association between BMI, and anemia and hemoglobin among women and children. However, the comments below should be addressed to enhance the quality of the paper.

Abstract:

The main objective of the study is not stated in the background of the abstract. The main objective of the study should be clearly stated in the abstract.

The paper also fails to clearly state the methods which were adopted in undertaking the study. The sample size of the study, the multiple statistical approaches, etc. which were used in the study is not stated in the methods of the abstract.

General comments:

There are some grammatical errors in the manuscript including missing commas, missing function words and dots. E.g. (lines; 48, 81, 87, 107, 116, 117, 285, 314, 316, 320, 324, 327, 392-393, 395, etc.). Author should carefully read through the paper and correct all grammatical errors.

In the introduction and throughout the paper, some sentences are not well structured and therefore makes them difficult to understand. Missing and misplaced commas, and function words makes some sentences ambiguous. Long and complex sentences have also been used in the manuscript E.g. (lines; 98-101, 101-102, 105-107, 118-121 etc.) Author should carefully read through the paper and restructure long and complex sentences to make them simple and easy to comprehend by a lay person.

The objective of the study was not clearly stated in the background of the paper.

The materials and methods used for the study is carefully written by the author. The kind of data used as well as the size of data on women and children from the secondary data which was analyzed by the author was clearly stated. The different forms of statistical analyses which were performed in the study were described in the methods. However, the eligibility criteria which was utilize in the selection of study participants was not clearly described in the methods. Author should be clear on the eligibility criteria utilized in the study.

The author has carefully presented the results and discussion of the study. The findings have been compared and contrasted with other existing findings. However, the discussion of this paper fails to capture the policy influence as well as the influence of the study findings on future studies relating to BMI, anemia and hemoglobin levels of women and children.

Reviewer #3: The author should address the grammeatical and typographical errors in the abstract and other parts of the manuscript.

Is the study a restrospective or a prospective study

If prospective then there is no need to highlight how the haemoglobin was estimated in detail

The authors did not also establish whether other causes of factors responsible for anaemia were excluded

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Emmanuel Adamolekun

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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Is BMI associated with anemia and hemoglobin level of women and children in Bangladesh: a study with multiple statistical approaches

PONE-D-21-16964R1

Dear Dr. Kamruzzaman,

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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Kind regards,

Enamul Kabir

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

Reviewer #2: 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

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: 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 #2: 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

Reviewer #2: 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 appreciate the facts the authors took to correction the issues raised in the first review and explained more details about the statistical tests used and grammatical errors. I believe this manuscript can be published

Reviewer #2: The author has carefully addressed most of the issues raised. However, there are some few typographical errors and needs to be corrected before the publication of the manuscript.

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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

Reviewer #2: No