Perspectives on dental health and oral hygiene practice from US adolescents and young adults during the COVID-19 pandemic

Long Zhang; Marika Waselewski; Jack Nawrocki; Ian Williams; Margherita Fontana; Tammy Chang

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0280533

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionSeptember 13, 2022
24 Oct 2022 Decision Letter - Tanay Chaubal, Editor PONE-D-22-25483Perspectives on dental health and oral hygiene practice from US adolescents and young adults during the COVID-19 pandemicPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Chang, 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. It is indeed an interesting study. However, I would suggest to respond to the reviewers comments. Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 08 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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The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. Thank you for stating the following in the Acknowledgments Section of your manuscript: "This research was funded by the Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research and the University of Michigan Department of Family Medicine. Funders had no part in the study design, data collection, analyses, interpretation of findings, or the decision to submit the manuscript for publication." We note that you have provided funding information that is not currently declared in your Funding Statement. However, funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form. Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows: "TC received funding for this research from the Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research and the University of Michigan Department of Family Medicine. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript." Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. 3. We note that you have indicated that data from this study are available upon request. PLOS only allows data to be available upon request if there are legal or ethical restrictions on sharing data publicly. For more information on unacceptable data access restrictions, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-unacceptable-data-access-restrictions. In your revised cover letter, please address the following prompts: a) If there are ethical or legal restrictions on sharing a de-identified data set, please explain them in detail (e.g., data contain potentially sensitive information, data are owned by a third-party organization, etc.) and who has imposed them (e.g., an ethics committee). Please also provide contact information for a data access committee, ethics committee, or other institutional body to which data requests may be sent. b) If there are no restrictions, please upload the minimal anonymized data set necessary to replicate your study findings as either Supporting Information files or to a stable, public repository and provide us with the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers. For a list of acceptable repositories, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-recommended-repositories. We will update your Data Availability statement on your behalf to reflect the information you provide. [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: Yes 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: 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 manuscript discusses the oral health awareness of a very important age group. The questions asked could have included the diet of the individuals and if they had access to a dentist easily. Also, the socioeconomic status is not mentioned in the demographics. The sample size is also inadequate to make a general observation of all adolescents and young adults. The questions on COVID-19 impact lack depth and could have added information if the oral health status like bleeding gums were exacerbated at that time. Overall, not a very insightful study. Adding a larger sample size with relevant questions like the above will help us get a true picture of this population. Reviewer #2: line 168 - in the sentence the surveyed and percieved should be seperated by a comma(,) line 170- there is extra comma after the hygiene word, please remove. check and go through similarly such commas are being added, please remove those also ****** 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. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280533.r001
Revision 1
29 Nov 2022 Author Response Dear Dr. Chaubal, Thank you for your email dated October 24, 2022, regarding our manuscript. We greatly appreciate the suggestions and have edited our manuscript accordingly. Our point-by-point responses to the comments are detailed below. Thank you for considering our revised manuscript for PLOS ONE. Sincerely, Tammy Chang, MD, MPH, MS Associate Professor University of Michigan RESPONSE TO REVIEWERS Reviewer #1: The manuscript discusses the oral health awareness of a very important age group. The questions asked could have included the diet of the individuals and if they had access to a dentist easily. Also, the socioeconomic status is not mentioned in the demographics. The sample size is also inadequate to make a general observation of all adolescents and young adults. The questions on COVID-19 impact lack depth and could have added information if the oral health status like bleeding gums were exacerbated at that time. Overall, not a very insightful study. Adding a larger sample size with relevant questions like the above will help us get a true picture of this population. RESPONSE: The following statements have been added to the limitations section to address this reviewer's concerns: Participants represent a large nationwide sample of youth that opted in to a text messaging poll. However, the sample is not nationally representative, which limits the generalizeability of our findings. The responses were also taken in May 2021, a very dynamic time where thoughts and opinions of COVID-19 in responses may change from the start of the pandemic to today. MyVoice is an open-ended poll designed to be only 5 questions to minimize burden on our youth participants, though this limits our ability to probe more deeply into the experiences of youth. Reviewer #2: line 168 - in the sentence the surveyed and perceived should be separated by a comma(,) line 170- there is extra comma after the hygiene word, please remove. check and go through similarly such commas are being added, please remove those also RESPONSE: The placement of the commas noted appears appropriate, though we will follow the guidance of the copy editor if changes are needed. EDITORS COMMENTS When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf RESPONSE: We have added the formatting requirements that were overlooked. . 2. Thank you for stating the following in the Acknowledgments Section of your manuscript: "This research was funded by the Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research and the University of Michigan Department of Family Medicine. Funders had no part in the study design, data collection, analyses, interpretation of findings, or the decision to submit the manuscript for publication." We note that you have provided funding information that is not currently declared in your Funding Statement. However, funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form. Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows: "TC received funding for this research from the Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research and the University of Michigan Department of Family Medicine. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript." Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. RESPONSE: The above funding statement is correct and no amendment is needed. Thank you for placing it in the Funding Statement section. 3. We note that you have indicated that data from this study are available upon request. PLOS only allows data to be available upon request if there are legal or ethical restrictions on sharing data publicly. For more information on unacceptable data access restrictions, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-unacceptable-data-access-restrictions. In your revised cover letter, please address the following prompts: a) If there are ethical or legal restrictions on sharing a de-identified data set, please explain them in detail (e.g., data contain potentially sensitive information, data are owned by a third-party organization, etc.) and who has imposed them (e.g., an ethics committee). Please also provide contact information for a data access committee, ethics committee, or other institutional body to which data requests may be sent. b) If there are no restrictions, please upload the minimal anonymized data set necessary to replicate your study findings as either Supporting Information files or to a stable, public repository and provide us with the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers. For a list of acceptable repositories, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-recommended-repositories. We will update your Data Availability statement on your behalf to reflect the information you provide. RESPONSE: As part of our NIH Certificate of Confidentiality, even de-identified open-ended responses cannot be shared publicly without agreement to the terms of data protection for the use of such data. This is because responses may be de-identified of traditional identifiers (demographics, location, etc), however, the youth's responses themselves may include identifying information. If data is requested, the requestor can sign a data use agreement that ensures protection of our participants to receive the data. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: PlosOne_Response_Ltr_11222.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280533.r002
2 Jan 2023 Decision Letter - Tanay Chaubal, Editor Perspectives on dental health and oral hygiene practice from US adolescents and young adults during the COVID-19 pandemic PONE-D-22-25483R1 Dear Dr. Tammy Chang, 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, Tanay Chaubal 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: (No Response) ****** 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: As stated in the response to my comments, it is acceptable that the mentioned limitations such as the number of questions and the intention not to burden the youth participants of the study are valid, especially at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. These responses can help understand the dental/oral health perceptions of the youth better and formulate an appropriate oral health policy for them. Reviewer #2: line 183-comma before the word and should be deleted line 192 - same way comma after sampling method not required line 213 and 214 if is a single sentence should be seperated by a comma and not fullstop which is placed befor the word our. ****** 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.0280533.r003
Formally Accepted
6 Jan 2023 Acceptance Letter - Tanay Chaubal, Editor PONE-D-22-25483R1 Perspectives on dental health and oral hygiene practice from US adolescents and young adults during the COVID-19 pandemic Dear Dr. Chang: 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. Tanay Chaubal Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280533.r004

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