Participatory action research to address lack of safe water, a community-nominated health priority in rural South Africa

Jennifer Hove; Denny Mabetha; Maria van der Merwe; Rhian Twine; Kathleen Kahn; Sophie Witter; Lucia D’Ambruoso

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0288524

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionOctober 19, 2022
17 Mar 2023 Decision Letter - Kamal Gholipour, Editor PONE-D-22-28823 Participatory action research to address lack of safe water, a community stakeholder nominated priority in PLOS ONE Dear Dr. D'Ambruoso, 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. ============================== This paper focused on an important subject. It is practical work and can be used by managers and policymakers to use participatory action research to address the lack of safe water. The reviewers have raised a number of points that we believe would improve the manuscript. In addition to the items raised by the reviewer, please address the following points before more consideration: It is better to state a specific study design in the first paragraph of the method section. Which is the level of participation or the role of the research team? It must be presented in the method section. The data analysis section should include which software were used. Did participants provide feedback on the findings? Finally, the conclusion could be improved. What is the take-home message of this paper? Here, some conclusive remarks may be specified by the authors for the general readership. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by May 01 2023 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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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 Reviewer #3: Partly ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: No Reviewer #3: N/A ****** 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 Reviewer #3: No ****** 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 Reviewer #3: 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: This paper provides as a case study from South Africa on community participatory research, and feedback on what interventions were ultimately possible and which did not succeed. The paper also provides a strong case for better listening to communities on what their problems are, and also realistic feedback that not all of these problems may be able to be solved as an outcome. 1. Additional background information is needed on why a lack of access to safe water remains in the study area. Is it due to rolling blackout of power which impacts the water pumping, or is there simply not enough water quantity in the area available? South African citizens are guaranteed water so how does this fit into the PAC? 2. Line 135 is unclear, why only one cycle and what are the other cycles? 3. Why did the community want a recycling center and beyond the presence of the NGO was there a community advocate? 4. Line 403 is missing a reflection on the election cycle impacting the mayor. Was there any one community issue that the mayor supported more or less? 5. The paper is missing a discussion on the strengths of this stakeholder engagement timeline, because other work shows that when it is too fast it fails. An additional figure with a timeline would assist the reader in understanding the many listening sessions and final outcomes. 6. Was there any reflection on the international authorship team here and the community listening sessions? Or, that partnership model? 7. In figure 1 and 2 please write out acronyms in full, it is hard to follow them. 8. The results and discussion are well written, but could be strengthen with more reflection on the “failures.” Can the authors give more details on outcomes not achieved and key points that can be pointed to when outcomes were achieved. Case studies such as this benefit literature the most in not overlooking both. Reviewer #2: The article is not suitable for publication in this journal due to non-observance of the article writing format, for example, non-observance of standards in materials and methods and presentation of inappropriate tables and graphs. Reviewer #3: Reviewer’s Comments 09/02/2023 Art. No.: PONE-D-22-28823 Art. Title: Participatory action research to address lack of safe water, a community stakeholder nominated priority in rural South Africa Respectfully Professors, Thank you for inviting me to review this document. The authors investigated the participatory action research to address lack of safe water in rural villages in South Africa. The decision I believe the breadth of this study is significant, and I highly suggest that the manuscript be published after minor adjustments. Thank you kindly. Major issues: - 1- The manuscript should be checked carefully for English and formatting style. 2- The authors should provide Figure no. 3? 3- The authors should reorganize the methods in simple way? 4- The authors should provide flowchart summarize the study design? Thanks ****** 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 Reviewer #3: 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.0288524.r001
Revision 1
13 May 2023 Author Response Reviewer(s)' Comments to Author(s): Reviewer #1: This paper provides as a case study from South Africa on community participatory research, and feedback on what interventions were ultimately possible and which did not succeed. The paper also provides a strong case for better listening to communities on what their problems are, and also realistic feedback that not all of these problems may be able to be solved as an outcome Many thanks for your careful review and insightful comments. We have carefully addressed all the comments and suggestions and we believe that the revised version is now suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. We provide responses below 1. Additional background information is needed on why a lack of access to safe water remains in the study area. Is it due to rolling blackout of power which impacts the water pumping, or is there simply not enough water quantity in the area available? South African citizens are guaranteed water so how does this fit into the PAC? The resubmitted manuscript now includes additional background information on the persistent challenge of water access in the Bushbuckridge local municipality study area. While recent power cuts may be a contributing factor, they are not the primary cause of the water access issue in the region. Data collection for cycle one was conducted from 2017 -19, during which the situation was challenging, but it was no acute as it is in 2023. (Page 5) 2. Line 135 is unclear, why only one cycle and what are the other cycles? In this paper we report on the first cycle which comprised three steps described below. These steps were crucial in informing the subsequent steps reported elsewhere. (Page 8) 3. Why did the community want a recycling centre and beyond the presence of the NGO was there a community advocate? These action items were developed in collaboration with local communities, NGOs, and researchers. Specifically, the NGO led the implementation of this particular action item in partnership with local communities. (Page 17) 4. Line 403 is missing a reflection on the election cycle impacting the mayor. Was there any one community issue that the mayor supported more or less? During the planning phase, it is crucial to time the project in a way that ensures the mayor's availability for support, buy-in, and participation, without other commitments. This is particularly important during elections when the mayor's availability may be limited. (Page 23) 5. The paper is missing a discussion on the strengths of this stakeholder engagement timeline, because other work shows that when it is too fast it fails. An additional figure with a timeline would assist the reader in understanding the many listening sessions and final outcomes. Agreed, and we have added more discussion on the strengths of stakeholder engagement timeline in the discussion section and a figure. However, this paper is reporting on the 1st of 5 cycles of the wider programme of research.(Page 28) 6. Was there any reflection on the international authorship team here and the community listening sessions? Or, that partnership model? Thank you for these constructive suggestions. We have tried to address this by adding a researcher reflection in the result section.(Page 28) 7. In figure 1 and 2 please write out acronyms in full, it is hard to follow them Thank you, this has been corrected as suggested 8. The results and discussion are well written but could be strengthen with more reflection on the “failures.” Can the authors give more details on outcomes not achieved and key points that can be pointed to when outcomes were achieved. Case studies such as this benefit literature the most in not overlooking both. The authors thank the reviewer for urging us to incorporate these contextual features. The result and discussion section of the revised manuscript gives more details on the outcomes not achieved. Reviewer #3 I believe the breadth of this study is significant, and I highly suggest that the manuscript be published after minor adjustments. Thank you kindly. Thank you for the encouraging comments and positive feedback, which has helped us to improve the quality of our manuscript. 1. The manuscript should be checked carefully for English and formatting style We have formatted and reviewed the manuscript. 2. The authors should provide Figure no. 3? Thank you. Figure 3 provided 3. The authors should reorganize the methods in simple way? We have reviewed the methods section and added stakeholder timeline diagram. 4. The authors should provide flowchart summarize the study design? Thank you for this suggestion, we have added a schematic illustration of the methods. END OF RESPONSE TO REVIEW Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Review_03 May 23.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288524.r002
29 Jun 2023 Decision Letter - Kamal Gholipour, Editor Participatory action research to address lack of safe water, a community-nominated health priority in rural South Africa PONE-D-22-28823R1 Dear Dr. D'Ambruoso, 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, Kamal Gholipour, 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: (No Response) ******** 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 ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: 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: No ****** 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: No ****** 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: Please revisit the following 3 comments which have not been addressed satisfactory from the first round. 3.Why did the community want a recycling center and beyond the presence of the NGO was there a community advocate? 4.Line 403 is missing a reflection on the election cycle impacting the mayor. Was there any one community issue that the mayor supported more or less? 5.The paper is missing a discussion on the strengths of this stakeholder engagement timeline, because other work shows that when it is too fast it fails. An additional figure with a timeline would assist the reader in understanding the many listening sessions and final outcomes. Finally, when you submit the corrected version, please do check thoroughly, in order to avoid grammar, syntax or structure/presentation flaws - please seek for professional English proofreading services or ask a native English-speaking colleague of yours in order to refine and improve the English in your paper. ****** 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 ******** https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288524.r003
Formally Accepted
19 Jul 2023 Acceptance Letter - Kamal Gholipour, Editor PONE-D-22-28823R1 Participatory action research to address lack of safe water, a community-nominated health priority in rural South Africa Dear Dr. D'Ambruoso: 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. Kamal Gholipour Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288524.r004

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