Peer Review History

Original SubmissionMay 4, 2021
Decision Letter - Gaetano Isola, Editor

PONE-D-21-14792

Oral health in Brazil: what were the dental procedures performed in Primary Health Care?

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Martins,

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 Sep 23 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:

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  • A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
  • An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled '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,

Gaetano Isola, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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2. Acknowledgments Section: Move New Information to the Financial Disclosure:

"Thank you for stating the following in the Acknowledgments Section of your manuscript:

“This study was supported by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), and Pró-Reitoria de Pesquisa da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (PRPq-UFMG).”

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Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf.

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

[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: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #2: 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

**********

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

**********

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 data were very old (2017-2018) and These data in present study is not contemporary, so these results don't reflect the current oral health requirements in Brazil.

Material method

Explain 5 macro region, mention which city in five region.

Reviewer #2: Thank you for submitting you manuscript.

The manuscript presents good data about Brazilian national public program for oral health services. Public health professionals can use these valuable data in countries where they provide dental public health services.

Manuscript is organized and present sound interpretation of data, but needs some language editing and review to avoid confusion and make it more clear and readable. Especially for some terminologies that have been translated to English terms.

Here are some examples (in bold and underline):

69 three phases: accession and contractualisation, certification and recontratualisation, and a transversal strategic axis of development

78 OHTs performed individual preventive, restorative, and surgical procedures and

emergencies; however

132 performed by the OHTs, including preventive, restorative, surgical, and prosthetic

133 procedures and cancer monitoring.

142 and cases in the community (80.5%). In addition, most OHTs did not realize biopsies

Also in Discussion:

The great accomplishment of basic oral health procedures by OHTs can be explained by the improvement in the infrastructure of dental offices, improvement in working conditions and higher qualification of professionals due to the increase in investments in oral health, provided by the National Oral Health Policy [16].

Comment: if you can elaborate more and exaplain what do you mean by the great accomplishment? Is it improvement in provided services compared to the 2nd cycle? Maybe mention some data from 2nd cycle to make it clear.

In this sense, the emergency dental care must be performed with a minimal use of high

speed handpieces in order to avoid aerosols resulting from the use of manual instruments.

Comment : you mean headpiece instrument?

**********

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: No

Reviewer #2: No

[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 1

We would like to thank the reviewers for the excellent suggestions in order to improve our paper. The responses of each comment are listed below. All edition and revisions made are highlighted by red in the new file.

Reviewer #1:

The data were very old (2017-2018) and these data in present study is not contemporary, so these results don't reflect the current oral health requirements in Brazil.

Response: The National Program for Improving Access and Quality of Primary Health Care (PMAQ-AB) is the largest health service evaluation program instituted in Brazil. The program ended in 2018 after three evaluation cycles. This study is based on national data, from the largest PHC evaluation program ever conducted in Brazil. These data refer to the last cycle of the PMAQ. Until this moment, there is no health service evaluation program under development in the country. So, nowadays, these are the data available that represents Brazilian national public program for oral health services, which reinforces the relevance of these results.

Material method

Explain 5 macro region, mention which city in five region.

Response: Thanks for the observations. We agree with the reviewer and the explanation about the Brazilian regions was included in Introduction section (7th paragraph, 84 line; The differences between the regions are discussed from 230 Line in Discussion.

Reviewer #2:

Thank you for submitting you manuscript. The manuscript presents good data about Brazilian national public program for oral health services. Public health professionals can use these valuable data in countries where they provide dental public health services.

Manuscript is organized and present sound interpretation of data, but needs some language editing and review to avoid confusion and make it more clear and readable. Especially for some terminologies that have been translated to English terms.

Here are some examples (in bold and underline):

69 three phases: accession and contractualisation, certification and recontratualisation, and a transversal strategic axis of development

Response: Thanks for the observations. We agree with the reviewer. The text was rewritten and the change was made to “The PMAQ-AB is organized in three phases; adhesion and agreement, certification and re-agreement, and one strategic transverse axis of development...”

78 OHTs performed individual preventive, restorative, and surgical procedures and emergencies; however

Response: Thanks for the observations. We agree with the reviewer. The text was rewritten and the change was made to “OHTs performed emergency, preventive, restorative and surgical procedures; however…”

132 performed by the OHTs, including preventive, restorative, surgical, and prosthetic 133 procedures and cancer monitoring.

Response: Thanks for the observations. We agree with the reviewer. The text was rewritten and the change was made to “performed by the OHTs, including preventive, restorative/prosthetic, surgical and actions of cancer monitoring.”

142 and cases in the community (80.5%). In addition, most OHTs did not realize biopsies

Response: Thanks for the observations. We agree with the reviewer. The text was rewritten and the change was made to “and cases in the population (80.5%). In addition, most OHTs did not perform biopsies”

Also in Discussion:

The great accomplishment of basic oral health procedures by OHTs can be explained by the improvement in the infrastructure of dental offices, improvement in working conditions and higher qualification of professionals due to the increase in investments in oral health, provided by the National Oral Health Policy [16].

Comment: if you can elaborate more and exaplain what do you mean by the great accomplishment? Is it improvement in provided services compared to the 2nd cycle? Maybe mention some data from 2nd cycle to make it clear

Response: Thanks for the observations and the opportunity to clarify this point. The better performance of OHTs, in basic procedures, is due to a greater investment in oral health, after the National Oral Health Policy. The text was rewritten: “The highest perform of basic oral health procedures by OHTs, like emergency, preventive, restorative and surgical procedures, can be explained by the improvement in the infrastructure of dental offices and working conditions, and higher qualification of professionals due to the increase in investments in oral health, provided by the National Oral Health Policy [17].”

In this sense, the emergency dental care must be performed with a minimal use of high speed handpieces in order to avoid aerosols resulting from the use of manual instruments. Comment: you mean headpiece instrument?

Response: Thanks for the observations and the opportunity to clarify this point. The text was rewritten:” In this sense, the emergency dental care must be performed with a minimal use of slow and high-speed handpieces in order to avoid aerosols, prioritizing the use of manual instruments.”

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: Response to reviewers.docx
Decision Letter - Gaetano Isola, Editor

PONE-D-21-14792R1

Oral health in Brazil: what were the dental procedures performed in Primary Health Care?

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Martins,

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 Dec 26 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:

  • A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
  • A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
  • An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled '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: https://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,

Gaetano Isola, Ph.D.

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.

Additional Editor Comments:

Please revise in accordance to reviewer's 3 comments before any further assessment of the manuscript.

[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 #2: All comments have been addressed

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 #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

********** 

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

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: I Don't Know

********** 

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 #2: 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 #2: Yes

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 #2: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: This is a very interesting article.

I would suggest the authors to search if other similar articles were performed in other countries.

In my opinion the materials and methods chapter has to be better explained.

Please also in the discussion chapter try to find more recent published articles.

********** 

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 #2: Yes: Ziyad Allahem

Reviewer #3: No

[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

We would like to thank the reviewers for the excellent suggestions in order to improve our paper. The responses of each comment are listed below. All edition and revisions made are highlighted by red in the new file.

Additional Editor Comments

Please revise in accordance to reviewer's 3 comments before any further assessment of the manuscript.

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 #2: (No Response)

Reviewer #3:This is a very interesting article. would suggest the authors to search if other similar articles were performed in other countries. In my opinion the materials and methods chapter has to be better explained. Please also in the discussion chapter try to find more recent published articles.

Response: Thanks for the observations. There is no program for evaluation of quality of primary care similar to PMAQ, in other countries. However, we added three articles that discuss the systems of oral care in an international perspective (references 18, 19 and 20). The materials and methods chapter was reviewed to be more clear Recent published articles were added to. discussion chapter (references 18, 19, 20, 27 and 28).

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: Response to reviewers_2.docx
Decision Letter - Gaetano Isola, Editor

Oral health in Brazil: what were the dental procedures performed in Primary Health Care?

PONE-D-21-14792R2

Dear Dr. Martins,

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,

Gaetano Isola, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

The authors have well addressed to all comments raised by both reviewers, as clearly shown in the reviewer round #2 report. No further issues are needed.

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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 #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #2: N/A

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 #2: 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 #2: Yes

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 #2: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: The authors have responded to all my demands and reviewed the article according to my indications.

**********

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 #2: Yes: Ziyad Allahem

Reviewer #3: No

Formally Accepted
Acceptance Letter - Gaetano Isola, Editor

PONE-D-21-14792R2

Oral health in Brazil: what were the dental procedures performed in Primary Health Care? 

Dear Dr. Martins:

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

Prof. Gaetano Isola

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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