Disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) based COVID-19 health impact assessment: A systematic review protocol

Daniel Teshome Gebeyehu; Leah East; Stuart Wark; Md Shahidul Islam

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0274468

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJune 1, 2022
4 Aug 2022 Decision Letter - Bernardo Lanza Queiroz, Editor PONE-D-22-15834 Disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) based COVID-19 health impact assessment: A systematic review protocol PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Gebeyehu, 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. add more literature about health impact assessment using DALYs expand protocol limitations add and revise literature, whenever possible, on quantitative analysis. Please, see detailed comments by reviewers. Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 18 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. 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It is hard to make changes because it is a novel idea from the authors. I believe it is quite interesting Reviewer #2: The protocol covers an interesting and really actual topic regarding the review of DALYs-based health impact publications. Although the manuscript is almost technically sounding, there is still room to be improved. First of all, the rationale section (lines 65-69) must be deepened adding more literature about the health impact assessment using DALYs. Thus, it should be useful to add some scientific evidence for each geographical macro-area to provide an overall state of the art and to better support the rationale of the study. Few examples are: “Gianino MM et al. Burden of COVID-19: disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) across 16 European countries. European Review for Medical and Pharmacological Sciences. 2021 Sep 1;25(17):5529-41.” “Zhao J, et al. Disease burden attributable to the first wave of COVID-19 in China and the effect of timing on the cost-effectiveness of movement restriction policies. Value Health. 2021; in press. doi: 10.1016/j.jval.2020.12.009.” “Pifarré i Arolas H, et al. Years of life lost to COVID-19 in 81 countries. Sci Rep. 2021;11:3504. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-83040-3” Moreover, authors should rephrase the inclusion and exclusion criteria in the eligibility criteria subsection. In particular, the exclusion criteria are not the exact contrary of the inclusion ones. Authors could also expand their search strategy to additional scientific databases as CINAHL and EMBASE. In addition to the search terms, it is useful to add, as a supplementary files, the whole search string, one for each database. The present reviewer does not know if the authors already thought about the provision of a quantitative synthesis of the results (i.e., meta-analysis). It would be interesting to read the results of a meta-analysis of the publications reporting health impact assessment based on DALYs. From a technical point of view, it seems feasible given the presence of the common indicator (i.e., DALY) across the selected studies and the statistical properties that a continuous variable has. Lines 174-176 should be moved in the discussion section. Authors should consider to expand the discussion of the protocol’s limitations. ****** 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. 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Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: PONE-D-22-15834_Revision.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274468.r001
Revision 1
11 Aug 2022 Author Response Dear editor and reviewers First and foremost, we want to acknowledge the substantial time you spent reviewing our manuscript entitled “Disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) based COVID-19 health impact assessment: A systematic review protocol”. The changes are indicated in Microsoft track changes and attached as “marked manuscript”. Revised and “unmarked manuscript” is also attached separately. Editor’s comment: 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. 1. Add more literature about health impact assessment using DALYs: As per the comment, 10 new references are added in the revised manuscript. 2. Expand protocol limitations: The limitations are expanded based on the reviewer 2’s comment and indicated in the Microsoft track change. 3. Add and revise literature, whenever possible, on quantitative analysis: Our preference to conduct a systematic review than metanalysis is indicated in the rationale sections of the revised protocol. 4. Please, see detailed comments by reviewers: All reviewer comments are addressed as follows. Reviewer #1: I liked the protocol the way it stands. It is hard to make changes because it is a novel idea from the authors. I believe it is quite interesting. Response: Dear reviewer, we want to extend our appreciation for your valuable comment. What you said above boosted our energy to continue our innovative work. Thanks once again. Reviewer #2: The protocol covers an interesting and really actual topic regarding the review of DALYs-based health impact publications. Although the manuscript is almost technically sounding, there is still room to be improved. 1. First of all, the rationale section (lines 65-69) must be deepened adding more literature about the health impact assessment using DALYs. Thus, it should be useful to add some scientific evidence for each geographical macro-area to provide an overall state of the art and to better support the rationale of the study. Few examples are: • “Gianino MM et al. Burden of COVID-19: disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) across 16 European countries. European Review for Medical and Pharmacological Sciences. 2021 Sep 1;25(17):5529-41.” • “Zhao J, et al. Disease burden attributable to the first wave of COVID-19 in China and the effect of timing on the cost-effectiveness of movement restriction policies. Value Health. 2021; in press. doi: 10.1016/j.jval.2020.12.009.” • “Pifarré i Arolas H, et al. Years of life lost to COVID-19 in 81 countries. Sci Rep. 2021;11:3504. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-83040-3” Response: Dear reviewer thanks for your constructive comment. We added 9 new references in the rationale section and 1 reference in the limitation section and all the changes are indicated in Microsoft track changes. 2. Moreover, authors should rephrase the inclusion and exclusion criteria in the eligibility criteria subsection. In particular, the exclusion criteria are not the exact contrary of the inclusion ones. Response: Dear reviewer thanks for your comment. We accept the comment and rephrased the inclusion and exclusion criteria. 3. In addition to the search terms, it is useful to add, as a supplementary file, the whole search string, one for each database. Response: As per the comment, the searching strategy for each database is attached as supporting file (S 2). 4. The present reviewer does not know if the authors already thought about the provision of a quantitative synthesis of the results (i.e., meta-analysis). It would be interesting to read the results of a meta-analysis of the publications reporting health impact assessment based on DALYs. From a technical point of view, it seems feasible given the presence of the common indicator (i.e., DALY) across the selected studies and the statistical properties that a continuous variable has. Response: Dear reviewer thanks for your genuine and valuable comment. The reason why we prefer to conduct a systematic review than metanalysis is indicated in the rationale section of the revised manuscript. In short, as confirmed from pilot search, the expected publication and reporting biases of the studies makes as to choose systematic reviews than metanalysis. 5. Lines 174-176 should be moved in the discussion section. Response: Done as per the comment. 6. Authors should consider to expand the discussion of the protocol’s limitations. Response: Done as per the comment. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Rebuttal Letter.docx.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274468.r002
30 Aug 2022 Decision Letter - Bernardo Lanza Queiroz, Editor Disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) based COVID-19 health impact assessment: A systematic review protocol PONE-D-22-15834R1 Dear Dr. Gebeyehu, 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, Bernardo Lanza Queiroz, Ph.D Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274468.r003
Formally Accepted
2 Sep 2022 Acceptance Letter - Bernardo Lanza Queiroz, Editor PONE-D-22-15834R1 Disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) based COVID-19 health impact assessment: A systematic review protocol Dear Dr. Gebeyehu: 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. Bernardo Lanza Queiroz Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274468.r004

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