PONE-D-21-26267The causes of loneliness: The perspective of young adults in London’s most deprived areasPLOS ONE

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Comments to the Author

Reviewer #1: I am very thankful to you for allowing me to review the paper. The paper titled "The causes of loneliness: The perspective of young adults in London’s most deprived areas" is very well written paper, but it is qualitative. There is not much use of Statistics in the paper. It would be better to define a technique for sampling. The authors did not mention about the technique to identify the deprived areas of London. There is need to enhance the sample size of the study as well. Qualitatively, authors proved the results with regard to hypothesis.

Reviewer #2: The present manuscript aims to explore the subjective causes of loneliness among young adults who live in the most deprived area in London. This is a well-written manuscript and I enjoyed much reading it. Some comments that might further improve are listed below:

1. Line 194-195: The first research question is a general one (the subjective causes). The authors added the second question (the role of social media). When this is written as one of the aim, I would expect that the role of social media will be explored via a specific question during the interview. When it was not the case, authors mighty consider to exclude this research question.

2. Table 1: For consistency, also add percentage for each boroughs in the 'Total' column

3. Line 253 - 265 - Data Analysis: Please elaborate the steps of data analysis being done: how many coders work independently? When was the second coder did the double coded to ensure reliability? Any improvement or changes being done after this comparison? etc

4. Line 622-626: It is stated that responses were compared across gender, race and religion. Authors mentioned the females, BAME and no religion more likely to socially compare themselves. However, I could not find description in the Results section (theme 4: social comparison) regarding comparison between race and religions, only between gender. Please elaborate.

Line 646-647 - Limitation: I would argue that this is not a limitation, since the research question and aim of the present study was to explore loneliness in the young adults from deprived area, no comparison was intended.

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The causes of loneliness: The perspective of young adults in London’s most deprived areas

PONE-D-21-26267R1

Dear Dr. Fardghassemi,

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.

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Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: Accepted. God Bless you.

Hope you will be able to write more such papers........................................................................................................................................................................................

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No