PONE-D-21-21440Stunted among Children Under Two Years in Indonesia: Does maternal education matter?PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Wulandari,

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.

The MS by Laksono and cols addresses an crucial issue in public health, especially in underdeveloping countries, the importance of the parental education and children health. Despite the merit, there are still several points to be cleared as described by the 2 reviewers. Also, an English editing would add quality for this interesting study.  

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PLOS ONE

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2. We noticed you have some minor occurrence of overlapping text with the following previous publications, which needs to be addressed:

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/755/1/012035

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/mcn.12826

http://mji.ui.ac.id/journal/index.php/mji/article/view/1819

https://worldwidescience.org/topicpages/c/canada+temporal+socio-demographic.html

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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

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: 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: Yes

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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

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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: This study addresses an important issue in global public health problem, i.e., stunting, in Indonesia, one of the largest countries in the world.

Title:

• As a non-native speaker, I am not sure about using the word “stunted among…..”. Please check.

Abstract:

• Authors could include the p-value or 95%CI for the point estimates listed.

• Authors might want to conclude the results more rather than restating the results.

Introduction:

• Authors might want to revisit the first sentence regarding the definition of stunting based on the WHO.

• The Introduction Section could be made more concise.

Materials and methods

• Please add a brief explanation about the 2017 Indonesian Nutritional Status Monitoring.

• Were there any variables related to household economic status apart from maternal employment? The economic status of mothers or households is an important indicator to adjust in the model, and this might be related to maternal education.

• Did the authors consider using province/region to adjust in the analysis?

• It will be good to explain how the survey conducted anthropometric measurement. Please elaborate.

• Were there any extreme values of these measurements found? How were they treated?

Results:

• Please add the 95%CI for the proportion of stunted children reported.

• The authors mentioned the collinearity test between dependent and independent variables? Please clarify.

• As a non-native speaker, I am not familiar with the wordings used by authors to describe Table 2 – “occupy” or “controlled” or “rule,” so I could not make any advice about this.

• Table 3. Please change p=0.000 to p>0.001, and authors can remove the Asterix for the p-value in the footnote.

• Table 3. The lower and upper bound for aOR for maternal age is the same? Please check again.

• Table 3. To make it easier for readers, authors could change some reference groups to make it more consistent, e.g., selecting ‘employed’ as the reference group, instead of ‘unemployed,’ so that all aOR consistently indicates the risk factors rather than a mixed with the protective factor (<1.0).

Discussion:

• Please avoid using the word “influence” or “effect.” It is best to use “association” as this is a cross-sectional study.

• Overall, the authors might include some recommendations of interventions that could be implemented based on the findings. Authors could use references from previous studies/literature regarding the effectiveness of those interventions.

• Authors might want to add the strengths of this study.

Conclusions:

• Authors might want to conclude the findings rather than restating the findings. Authors could include some recommendations based on the findings.

Reviewer #2: - I recommend revision of the title indicating that this is a meta-analysis and use the word "stunting" or "stunted growth" instead of stunted in the title.

- Abstract : Background - Expound a bit on the background of the study; use "stunting" among children...

Methods - What is maternal marital? Does it pertain to maternal status?

- Introduction - Avoid very long sentences and repeated use of "and" in a sentence (last sentence, second paragraph)

- Materials and Methods - Again, use stunting (a condition, status) and not stunted; You may include the inclusion and exclusion criteria and other statistical analysis/es employed in the study

-Results - Please follow proper format for Tables (APA format); format Tables 1-3

-Table 1 - Since maternal characteristics is written in bold and clear, I suggest to delete the "mother's.." in the 4 entries

-Conclusions - Use "stunting among children under two years in Indonesia"

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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

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Stunting among Children Under Two Years in Indonesia: Does maternal education matter?

PONE-D-21-21440R1

Dear Dr. Wulandari,

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.

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Kind regards,

Marcello Otake Sato, Ph.D., D.V.M.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Should the authors correct these points at the proofreading step:

-Abstract: Methods- 3rd statement - maternal marital - It should be written as maternal marital status

-Results: Last sentence- Should be: Moreover...mothers with a college education to have stunted children under two years (...).

-Conclusion: Last sentence should be written: The lower the mother's... chances of a mother having stunted children under two years.

-Page 6: Last line- Multivariate Analysis: Under two years of stunted growth (...)

-Page 7: First statement- Should be written as ...mothers having stunted children under two years.

-Second paragraph - same comment as previous.

-NOTE: Please check all phrases/statements written as - ...having children under two years stunted... should be written as ...having stunted children under two years. The way the statement was written seems not to convey sense of meaning. Kindly change to: ...having stunted children under two years.

-Conclusion: First paragraph - the lower the maternal... to have stunted children under two years. OR ...to have stunted children under two years of age.

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

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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 #2: Yes

**********

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

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 #2: Yes

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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: No

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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: Abstract: Methods- 3rd statement - maternal marital - It should be written as maternal marital status

Results: Last sentence- Should be: Moreover...mothers with a college education to have stunted children under two years (...).

Conclusion: Last sentence should be written: The lower the mother's... chances of a mother having stunted children under two years.

Page 6: Last line- Multivariate Analysis: Under two years of stunted growth (...)

Page 7: First statement- Should be written as ...mothers having stunted children under two years.

Second paragraph - same comment as previous.

NOTE: Please check all phrases/statements written as - ...having children under two years stunted... should be written as ...having stunted children under two years. The way the statement was written seems not to convey sense of meaning. Kindly change to: ...having stunted children under two years.

Conclusion: First paragraph - the lower the maternal... to have stunted children under two years. OR ...to have stunted children under two years of age.

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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 #2: No

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