The effect of poor vision on economic farm performance: Evidence from rural Cambodia

Frederik Sagemüller; Selina Bruns; Oliver Mußhoff

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0274048

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionMarch 23, 2022
16 May 2022 Decision Letter - László Vasa, Editor PONE-D-22-08676The effect of poor vision on economic farm performance: Evidence from rural CambodiaPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Sagemüller, 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 Jun 30 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. 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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: 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 topic is very interesting and also relevant. The elaboration and the applied methodology look accurate. There is still a formal problem: there are no source indications neither under the tables in the paper, nor under the figures at the end of the text. The indication of data sources is an essential requirement even in case of field research data as well. The numbering of figures is not evident, there are three figures indicated as “Figure 1”, then the last one as “Figure 4”. The bibliographic review could also be broadened, with the view of focusing on the international context, like examples of other Asian countries especially in ASEAN region, as Vietnam or Laos. After the mentioned improvements were done, the paper can be recommended to be accepted and published. Reviewer #2: The paper focuses on a topic with rather unique approach. The correlations of vision problems and farm management is a less researched field so no doubt, the paper is original. Regarding the context, it is obvious that Cambodia is just a kind of case study which allows us to estimate the seriousness of the problem in other developing countries with low level of healthcare. The statistical analysis uses the appropriate and well.selected toolset and completed well, however, despite most elements of the sampling, dataset and statistical tools are described, the general introduction of the methodology is missing. Which methods were used, based on what assumptions and who else used it for similar purposes? These questions should be answered at the beginning of the methodological parts. The introductory chapter highlights the reason and context of the research well, and also includes some literature review. However, this latter is far not enough. I recommend to write a separate literature review chapter where the related sources are processed analytically, critically and in a comparative way. ****** 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. 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Revision 1
22 Jul 2022 Author Response Point-to-point response to reviewer #1 Regarding the original research article “The effect of poor vision on economic farm performance: Evidence from rural Cambodia.” Dear reviewer #1, Thank you very much for your helpful feedback. We are very grateful for the time and effort that you have devoted to our paper, and we are confident that our revisions and responses below address your concerns. However, we stand ready to make any additional changes that you deem necessary. Please find below our detailed responses. The topic is very interesting and also relevant. The elaboration and the applied methodology look accurate. Thank you very much for this positive comment! There is still a formal problem: there are no source indications neither under the tables in the paper, nor under the figures at the end of the text. The indication of data sources is an essential requirement even in case of field research data as well. Thank you very much for this information; we added the source to all tables and figures in the manuscript. The numbering of figures is not evident, there are three figures indicated as “Figure 1”, then the last one as “Figure 4”. Thank you very much for detecting this error. We adjusted all captions. The bibliographic review could also be broadened, with the view of focusing on the international context, like examples of other Asian countries especially in ASEAN region, as Vietnam or Laos. Thank you very much for this comment. This topic came up with the other reviewer as well. We decided to add chapter “2. Literature review”, where we include a discussion on 15 more research articles, including studies on the prevalence of vision impairments from Cambodia’s neighboring countries Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. For reasons of brevity we don’t include the chapter here, but kindly refer to the literature review beginning on page 4 of the manuscript. After the mentioned improvements were done, the paper can be recommended to be accepted and published. Thank you very much for the positive review, it is very much appreciated. Point-to-point response to reviewer #2 Regarding the original research article “The effect of poor vision on economic farm performance: Evidence from rural Cambodia.” Dear reviewer #2, Thank you very much for your helpful feedback. We are very grateful for the time and effort that you have devoted to our paper, and we are confident that our revisions and responses below address your concerns. However, we stand ready to make any additional changes that you deem necessary. Please find below our detailed response. Reviewer #2: The paper focuses on a topic with rather unique approach. The correlation of vision problems and farm management is a less researched field so no doubt, the paper is original. Regarding the context, it is obvious that Cambodia is just a kind of case study which allows us to estimate the seriousness of the problem in other developing countries with low level of healthcare. Thank you very much for this comment, we are very glad to receive this positive comment. The statistical analysis uses the appropriate and well selected toolset and completed well, however, despite most elements of the sampling, dataset and statistical tools are described, the general introduction of the methodology is missing. Which methods were used, based on what assumptions and who else used it for similar purposes? These questions should be answered at the beginning of the methodological parts. Thank you very much for this comment. We added a paragraph to the methods section, were we introduce the methodology and in which contexts it is used. We also refer to several studies that evaluate impacts on agricultural production which use these methods. On page 13, we added following sentences to the first paragraph: An important problem of causal inference is how to estimate treatment effects in observational studies, where (like an experiment) a group of units is exposed to a well-defined treatment, but (unlike an experiment) no systematic methods of experimental design are used to maintain a control group(46). To circumvent this problem, we apply Mahalanobis distance matching (MDM) and propensity score matching (PSM). Matching involves pairing treatment and comparison units that are similar in terms of their observable characteristics. These matching methods have become popular in impact evaluations and are used in a variety of fields, including to assess impacts related to agricultural production (47–51). The introductory chapter highlights the reason and context of the research well, and also includes some literature review. However, this latter is far not enough. I recommend to write a separate literature review chapter where the related sources are processed analytically, critically and in a comparative way. Thank you very much for this comment. As you suggested, we included “Section 2. Literature review” to the manuscript. In this literature review, we discuss 15 studies on the global prevalence of vision impairments and their impacts on global productivity. We critically review the research gaps, with a special attention on the impacts of visual impairments on agricultural productivity. For reasons of brevity we don’t include the chapter here, but kindly refer to the literature review beginning on page 4 of the manuscript. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: response to reviewer 2.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274048.r002
22 Aug 2022 Decision Letter - László Vasa, Editor The effect of poor vision on economic farm performance: Evidence from rural Cambodia PONE-D-22-08676R1 Dear Dr. Sagemüller, 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, László Vasa, PhD 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 ******** 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: All the previous suggestions and critical observations have been fixed, so the paper is recommended to be accepted. Reviewer #2: The authors accepted my critics and improved their paper based on my comments and recommendations. The paper represents a higher scientific standard now, I find it eligible for publication without any further changes. ****** 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 ******** https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274048.r003
Formally Accepted
30 Aug 2022 Acceptance Letter - László Vasa, Editor PONE-D-22-08676R1 The effect of poor vision on economic farm performance: Evidence from rural Cambodia Dear Dr. Sagemüller: 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. Dr. László Vasa Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274048.r004

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