Peer Review History
Original SubmissionSeptember 2, 2021 |
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PONE-D-21-28429Pooled prevalence and associated factors of diarrhea among under-five years children in East Africa: A multilevel logistic regression analysisPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Tareke, 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 Jan 06 2022 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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[Unpublished]”) as detailed online in our guide for authors http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-reference-style [Note: HTML markup is below.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: Yes 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: No Reviewer #2: 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: PONE-D-21-28429 Pooled prevalence and associated factors of diarrhea among under-five years children in East Africa: A multilevel logistic regression analysis This manuscript describes the pooled prevalence of diarrhea among East Africa countries and its predictors using the DHS data. While the manuscript is of some interest, the manuscript could be strengthened by several modest changes as outlined below. Comments - English language needs to be improved and edited by a native English speaker. - East Africa is repeated in keywords. - LINE 47 – Do you mean “second most common cause of death”? - A brief introduction of East Africa (e.g. rural/urban ratio, characteristics related to diarrhea and current WASH program in East Africa in the Methods section would be helpful to the readers. - Literacy and education are different and could not be able to categorize as literacy according to educational level. - If you control both maternal education and education of caregiver (considered mostly would be mothers), there is an collinearity issue. - It is better to rearrange the categories among variables in order in Table. (e.g. 15-24 yrs first followed by 25-34, 35-49, same apply to education, wealth index, etc..) - Some variables mentioned in the methods such as media exposure are missing in Table 1. - Clear explanation of recoding the variables is deemed necessary. I noticed that you explained for some (but still need better explanation) while missing for some variables (e.g. distance from health facility) - LINE 176, 177 – what do you mean by the proportion in the 95%CI. Mean should come with SD while median should come with IQR. - Any relation between diarrhea and time of breastfeeding initiation for children > 2 years? - Why do you include Visit to health facility or visited by health worker � visit to health facility due to diarrhea? If yes, which happened after diarrhea, should not be controlled for it. Otherwise, please explain. - For pooled prevalence in the forest plot, are there any common characteristics between countries (e.g. low income countries, lower middle income countries or high income countries)? If yes, you can try a sub-group analysis because there is a big difference in prevalence among countries. You can also explore the heterogeneity by the I-square value. - Adjusting the scale in the x-axis of forest plot will give a better picture of point estimate and 95%CI. - I appreciated that the authors tried to do sensitivity analysis here. As Table 2 and Figure 2 provide same information, you can omit one. - Double check on the sensitivity analysis result. As you mentioned, although Ethiopia has a great influence on the pooled prevalence, in fact, Madagascar has lowest prevalence and weight % is not so much different from Ethiopia but result does not change in sensitivity analysis while prevalence becomes doubled after omitting Ethiopia. - Figure 2 is not eye catching and the number are overlapped. Is the x-axis percentage? Better redraw it. - LINE 218-236 – remove the subtitles and explanation of Table 2 results should go under the subtitle ‘Model comparison’. - It is interesting that type of toilet is not associated with diarrhea. Is there any open defecation culture and such kinds of variables included in the dataset? If yes, you should consider it. Are every household have a toilet? - As Figure 2 and Table 3 give same information, omit one. - Title for Table 3 is missing. - LINE 249-259 – can omit as there is no information there. - The authors tend to cover all information in the text and again in the table. You should only include the most important details in the text when you also have a table. - The discussion is weak in light of the findings. The discussion section should be rewritten. The ideas are incoherently mixed. The discussion needs to focus on the key implications of the data with a separate paragraph for each concept. - There are repetition of results in the discussion. - First paragraph of discussion, should start with brief answer to your research question. Do you think the diarrhea prevalence in East Africa is low or high? And why do you think? Is there any target? Etc. - In my perspective, comparing the pooled prevalence of East Africa and the prevalence of e.g. Ethiopia is not meaningful because Ethiopia is already included in the pooled prevalence. Furthermore, you mentioned the reason as ‘dissimilarity’ between East Africa and e.g. Ethiopia also not meaningful. - LINE 316-317 is confusing. Children have to provide supplementary food when the time arrives and it cannot be concluded as ‘highly likely to ingest unhygienic foods’. It mainly depends on the caregivers’ knowledge. - The defecation culture in East Africa (?open defecation), any efforts in WASH program, government’s implementation, caregiver’s knowledge, etc. should be discussed. Reviewer #2: Comment General comment • The whole manuscript should be revised by English language expert as it is full of grammatical errors • What will add this paper from the previous similar studies at sub Sahran African level (e.g: Demissie GD, Yeshaw Y, Aleminew W, Akalu Y (2021) Diarrhea and associated factors among under five children in sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from demographic and health surveys of 34 sub-Saharan countries. PLoS ONE 16(9): e0257522. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone. 0257522 ). At least you did not recognize by using these studies as reference. You have to also identify the major gap of these studies that you filled. • Implication and justification for the significantly associated variables the discussion part is not strong and hence should be revised Background • Sentence on Line 51 and 52 should be clear. “Global 51 burden of diseases 2019 report shows that sub-Saharan total DALYs estimate due to diarrhea was 52 13.01% respectively (3, 4).” • Line 57 and 58: Reference should be incorporated Methods and materials • The sample size should be weighted sample size and you did not mention if it is weighted otherwise it should be • You have to also prepare a table which explains that survey years and weighted sample size for each country • Line number 98 and 99 is repeated • Time to fetch drinking water source should be included as one variable as it it is already in DHS data sets • Why did you include “community level of poverty and community level of illiteracy variables” as community level factors as these variables are already included in the level 1 as household wealth index and education status as individual level? • From your operational definition(media exposure), I hope it is a composite variable and you have to explain this • Category of your dependent and independent variables should be supported by references • Part of data analysis is very long paragraphs. Please divide each in to more than two parts(line number 144-166) Result • You have to revise measurement of a variable(distance to health facility) • Line 249 “multivariate” is not correct word as your outcome variable is binary. So use the word “multivariable” • Line number 259 spelling error Discussion • Line number 300-306 is part of result part. Please avoid this from discussion part • You did not study “incidence” so avoid it Line number 308 • Justifications should be supported by evidences(references) in the discussion part • I did not see your significant community level variables in your discussion References • Revise your References citation based on the standard ********** 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.
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Revision 1 |
PONE-D-21-28429R1Pooled prevalence and associated factors of diarrhea among under-five years children in East Africa: A multilevel logistic regression analysisPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Tareke, 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 Mar 11 2022 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: 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, Khin Thet Wai, MBBS, MPH, MA Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (if provided): To consider and revise in line with reviewer's comments which are critical to improve scientific integrity. [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 #2: 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: Partly 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: No 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: PONE-D-21-28429R1 Pooled prevalence and associated factors of diarrhea among under-five years children in East Africa: A multilevel logistic regression analysis Thank you for the revised version. Although there is some improvement, the manuscript still requires a significant improvement from the previous version of the manuscript. My sense is that the authors could not sufficiently explain or solve the reviewer’s comments and its current form does not have sufficient quality to warrant publication in PLOS ONE. Comments - Point by point responses with LINE number of corrected sentences would facilitate to review - Attaching the old version of manuscript makes me confused - English language correction is deemed necessary. - Introduction should be clear, concise, and identify the added scientific value from the study. - Table 2 – What is the difference between variables ‘mother’s current working status’ and ‘mother’s working status’. The proportion are different. - You cannot control both ‘maternal education status’ and ‘community level educational status’ together in a regression model. According to your methodology, these two are derived from a single variable/information, correct? Same applied to poverty/wealth index. - Also, did you check collinearity? - Regarding relation between diarrhea and time of breast feeding initiation, I also do not think these are related. That’s the reason why I am asking to you why because you study population is under 5 children and you controlled breastfeeding initiation in the regression model. - Discussion section needs to be improved a lot. Reviewer #2: (No Response) ********** 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 [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 2 |
Pooled prevalence and associated factors of diarrhea among under-five years children in East Africa: A multilevel logistic regression analysis PONE-D-21-28429R2 Dear Dr. Tareke, 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, Khin Thet Wai, MBBS, MPH, MA Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): All comments are adequately addressed. 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 ********** 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 ********** 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 |
Formally Accepted |
PONE-D-21-28429R2 Pooled prevalence and associated factors of diarrhea among under-five years children in East Africa: A multilevel logistic regression analysis Dear Dr. Tareke: 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. Khin Thet Wai Academic Editor PLOS ONE |
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