Does women empowerment associate with reduced risks of intimate partner violence in India? evidence from National Family Health Survey-5

Rakhi Ghoshal; Priti Patil; Anita Gadgil; Priyansh Nathani; Prashant Bhandarkar; Dnyaneshwar B. Kale; Nobhojit Roy

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0293448

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJanuary 31, 2023
7 Jun 2023 Decision Letter - Hariom Kumar Solanki, Editor PONE-D-23-02776Women’s Household Decision-making, Mobiles Phones and Menstrual Hygiene associate with reduced IPV: findings from NFHS-5, IndiaPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Roy, 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 Jul 22 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. 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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If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. Additional Editor Comments : Dear authors The study seems relevant and methodologically appropriate. However, please address the reviewer's comments for further consideration towards acceptance. Thank you [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: No 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: No 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: This is a very important subject area for social cohesion, however, the following concerns need attention by the authors. The first statement of the abstract contradicts the last statements of the first and last paragraphs of the background. The aim of the study is found in the fourth paragraph of the background but the authors have aim among others as a sub-heading in the method. Lakh is used several times. It would help readers if the English meaning of Lakh could be put in brackets immediately after using it. There are two sub-headings under the method that have “design”. The authors need to correct it. The authors listed Microsoft Office Excel-2021, R Studio, and SPSS version 22.0 as the softwares used to analyse the data. There is a need for an explanation to be given as to how each software was used. A summary of descriptive statistics of the variable could be given in the result section before the correlation matrix. This would throw more light on the manuscript. If the authors attend to these concerns, the article will provide very relevant information for academics and the policymakers. Reviewer #2: Reviewer Comments Title I will suggest that the authors reframe the topic as: Are Women’s’ Household decision-making, Mobile Phone Ownership, and Menstrual Hygiene associated with reduced IPV? Findings from NFHS-5, India. Abstract The background of the abstract simply ignored other important aspects of the work that were highlighted in the topic. Hence, the other parts such as mobile phone ownership and menstrual hygiene will need to be discussed unless they are simply measures of women’s household decision-making. The method section of the abstract should include the sample size for this study, it’ll be important to show that. Intimate Partner Violence should be included as a keyword. Introduction The last set of sentences on the relationship between employment and IPV risk (Pages 3-4) can be communicated in a single sentence. Similar to the background section of the abstract, the introduction does not depict what the topic is communicating. The authors will need to decide whether this study is entirely focused on women’s empowerment and IPV, with mobile phone ownership and menstrual hygiene as measures of women’s empowerment or rewrite the whole introduction section to incorporate ideas on mobile phone ownership//menstrual hygiene and their links with IPV. Method Excellent description of the method section especially the statistical analyses employed in this study. However, the authors should endeavor to provide some more information on the study design, especially the type of sampling and how the NSFH study respondents were selected. Results, Discussion, and Conclusion The results were greatly presented, and the findings were discussed in light of similar findings in the literature. It would be highly appropriate for the authors to offer suggestions for future studies in the context of the study. ****** 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.0293448.r001
Revision 1
19 Jul 2023 Author Response EDITOR COMMENTS 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. All referencing and formatting style aligned with journal requirement. 2. Please provide additional details regarding participant consent. In the ethics statement in the Methods and online submission information, please ensure that you have specified what type you obtained (for instance, written or verbal, and if verbal, how it was documented and witnessed). If your study included minors, state whether you obtained consent from parents or guardians. If the need for consent was waived by the ethics committee, please include this information. The required ethics statement has been added to the Method’s ethical considerations and data quality section, including a reference: [“Additional details on the protocol are available at https://dhsprogram.com/Methodology/Survey-Types/DHS.cfm.”] 3. In your Data Availability statement, you have not specified where the minimal data set underlying the results described in your manuscript can be found. PLOS defines a study's minimal data set as the underlying data used to reach the conclusions drawn in the manuscript and any additional data required to replicate the reported study findings in their entirety. All PLOS journals require that the minimal data set be made fully available. Upon re-submitting your revised manuscript, please upload your study’s minimal underlying data set as either Supporting Information files or to a stable, public repository and include the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers within your revised cover letter. Sorry for not being clear on this. All the Summary Fact Sheets and data used in the study is available on the DHS and NFHS website through their portal for registered users. We have made the edits on the DATA AVAILABILITY statement. (https://dhsprogram.com/data/http://rchiips.org/nfhs/factsheet_NFHS-5.shtml) 4. We note that Figure 1 in your submission contain map images which may be copyrighted. All PLOS content is published under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which means that the manuscript, images, and Supporting Information files will be freely available online, and any third party is permitted to access, download, copy, distribute, and use these materials in any way, even commercially, with proper attribution. For these reasons, we cannot publish 5previously copyrighted maps or satellite images created using proprietary data, such as Google software (Google Maps, Street View, and Earth). For more information, see our copyright guidelines: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/licenses-and-copyright. We require you to either (1) present written permission from the copyright holder to publish these figures specifically under the CC BY 4.0 license, or (2) remove the figures from your submission. Figure-1 images have now been modified once more. We have done visualization using opensource technology R, which is a programming language and environment for Statistical computing and graphics. We used ggplot2 package of R for this purpose in the R studio for Windows. We believe this is in compliance with PLOS policy. Figure-1 images have now been modified once more. We have done visualization using opensource technology R, which is a programming language and environment for Statistical computing and graphics. We used ggplot2 package of R for this purpose in the R studio for Windows. We believe this is in compliance with PLOS policy. 5. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. We have added 3 references (refs # 37, 38, 39). We have updated the Reference list as per the journal’s referencing style policy (Vancouver). REVIEWER#1 COMMENTS 1. The first statement of the abstract contradicts the last statements of the first and last paragraphs of the background. Yes indeed. Thank you. We have now edited the starting part of the Abstract to be synchronous with the Background. Background is also edited to be consistent. 2. The aim of the study is found in the fourth paragraph of the background but the authors have aim among others as a sub-heading in the method. Yes, indeed we had duplicated it. We have now removed ‘aim’ from under Methods section. 3. Lakh is used several times. It would help readers if the English meaning of Lakh could be put in brackets immediately after using it. We have decided to just use the numbers, since in millions, the numbers are less than even one million. 4. There are two sub-headings under the method that have “design”. The authors need to correct it. Thank you for pointing that out. The redundant ‘Design’ word was removed from the Method section. 5. The authors listed Microsoft Office Excel-2021, R Studio, and SPSS version 22.0 as the softwares used to analyse the data. There is a need for an explanation to be given as to how each software was used. The appropriate explanation was added to the Statistical Analysis section. 6. A summary of descriptive statistics of the variable could be given in the result section before the correlation matrix. This would throw more light on the manuscript. We have re-ordered the Results section to address the reviewer comment. The Result section now has the description (heatmap) first, followed by the table of Composite Score, followed by the Correlation Matrix. 7. If the authors attend to these concerns, the article will provide very relevant information for academics and the policymakers. Thank you; we have tried our best to address all the concerns to the best of our capabilities. REVIEWER#2 COMMENTS 1. [Title:] I will suggest that the authors reframe the topic as: Are Women’s’ Household decision-making, Mobile Phone Ownership, and Menstrual Hygiene associated with reduced IPV? Findings from NFHS-5, India. We have now changed the title to make it broader. Detailed response related to the Title is also under point # 6 below. [Revised title is – Do empowered women have lowered risks of intimate partner violence in India? Evidence from National Family Health Survey- 5] 2. The background of the abstract simply ignored other important aspects of the work that were highlighted in the topic. Hence, the other parts such as mobile phone ownership and menstrual hygiene will need to be discussed unless they are simply measures of women’s household decision-making. We confirm that for this manuscript, mobile phone ownership and menstrual hygiene were our findings, not part of the aim. So, we have changed the title to be compatible with the Aim, and not Findings. Thus, we did not edit the Background (Abstract) to include mobile phone ownership or menstrual hygiene issues. We have left it at discussing women empowerment and its likely association with IPV, and that we are aiming to study the association for India. 3. The method section of the abstract should include the sample size for this study, it’ll be important to show that. Agree with the reviewer. Details about sample size are now added. 4. Intimate Partner Violence should be included as a keyword. Sure, included now. 5. [Introduction] The last set of sentences on the relationship between employment and IPV risk (Pages 3-4) can be communicated in a single sentence. Thank you. The sentences have been merged, and the references repositioned accordingly. 6. Similar to the background section of the abstract, the introduction does not depict what the topic is communicating. The authors will need to decide whether this study is entirely focused on women’s empowerment and IPV, with mobile phone ownership and menstrual hygiene as measures of women’s empowerment or rewrite the whole introduction section to incorporate ideas on mobile phone ownership//menstrual hygiene and their links with IPV. This is indeed a significant discrepancy in the manuscript – thank you for highlighting it. Co-authors had a round of discussion and we realise that specifically mentioning mobile phones or menstrual hygiene in the title is not what we want to do. The paper set out to study the association with women empowerment and IPV (as stated in the aim) and found these variables as significant. Not the other way round. So, we have decided to change the title so that it is broader and reflects our primary question, and not the findings. So, we have not edited the Introduction to highlight literature on mobile phones and menstrual hygiene but kept the focus on empowerment and its broad indicators only, in terms of literature review in this Introduction. 7. [Method] Excellent description of the method section especially the statistical analyses employed in this study. However, the authors should endeavor to provide some more information on the study design, especially the type of sampling and how the NSFH study respondents were selected. Thank you for your appreciation. We have now added the detailed sampling and the selection of sample size. 8. [Results, Discussion, and Conclusion] The results were greatly presented, and the findings were discussed in light of similar findings in the literature. Thank you. 9. It would be highly appropriate for the authors to offer suggestions for future studies in the context of the study. Yes, we agree. We have added a paragraph on future research pathways at the end of the Discussion section. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers-17July.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0293448.r002
4 Sep 2023 Decision Letter - Hariom Kumar Solanki, Editor PONE-D-23-02776R1Do empowered women have lowered risks of intimate partner violence in India? Evidence from National Family Health Survey-5PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Roy, 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 Oct 19 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. 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. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Hariom Kumar Solanki, M.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. Additional Editor Comments: Dear Authors Thank you for submitting the revised manuscript, However, in view of reviewers comments and suggestions on the revised submission, the manuscript will require minor revision before further consideration. Regards Dr Hariom Kumar Solanki Academic Editor 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 #3: (No Response) Reviewer #4: (No Response) Reviewer #5: (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 #3: Partly Reviewer #4: Partly Reviewer #5: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #3: Yes Reviewer #4: Yes Reviewer #5: 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 #3: Yes Reviewer #4: Yes Reviewer #5: 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 #3: Yes Reviewer #4: Yes Reviewer #5: 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 #3: 1.Kindly check last 3 keywords in MESH.If available then retain, otherwise delete 2.Last paragraph of the Background should be strong enough to identify gaps in the literature , rationale behind this study with relevance to IPV and women empowerment. 3.METHODS i. kindly mention whether it is primary analysis or you analyzed an already conducted survey. Kindly mention about sampling technique which will make it clear how that specific sample size was achieved. ii. Justify why 03 Softwares were used for data analysis. iii. Give a one liner which association will be called strongly linked iv. What is level of confidence/level of significance adopted by you? 4.RESULTS Kindly re-design table-2 giving info on composite scores, correlation coefficients and p-values. Reviewer #4: 1. You have mentioned only female from each household were taken. Please specify how many households were taken in your study from the data of the NFHS survey. What was the selection criteria of the household from the total households. Specify sampling technique in detail from the total household to selection of sample from the sampling frame. Reviewer #5: The work is a good addition to knowledge in the field of public health. Overall, the study will achieve study objective if observations made were taken- as applicable. Some sections of the results, discussion, limitation and references will need a revision. If not for data limitation, regression models would have improved the quality of study output. ****** 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 #3: No Reviewer #4: No Reviewer #5: Yes: ADEOYE, Philip Adewale ******** [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. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: [AdeoyePA review] Revised Manuscript without track changes PLOS ONE IPV.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0293448.r003
Revision 2
10 Sep 2023 Author Response Section Reviewer comment Action taken Response by authors Reviewer # 3 1 Keywords Kindly check last 3 keywords in MESH. If available then retain, otherwise delete Deleted So, we deleted them. Thank you for alerting us to this. The last three keywords (Spousal violence, Male backlash, Ownership of asset) are indeed not available as MeSH terms. 2 Background Last paragraph of the Background should be strong enough to identify gaps in the literature, rationale behind this study with relevance to IPV and women empowerment. Added references and specifically identified gaps in literature. Thank you for the suggestion. We have edited the last paragraph of the Background, and bolstered the evidence on women empowerment, especially from India. We have identified specific gaps in this domain, as noted by other scholars, and pointed that out in Aims. The paper explicitly addresses those gaps. 3 Methods kindly mention whether it is primary analysis or you analyzed an already conducted survey. Mentioned in ‘Design and Setting’ The analysis presented in our study is based on data from the 5th round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS). We utilized existing NFHS-5 summary reports to conduct our analysis. Thus, the analysis is not a primary analysis; it is a secondary analysis of an already conducted survey. We have clearly mentioned this now. 4 Methods Kindly mention about sampling technique which will make it clear how that specific sample size was achieved. Added in ms. Sure, thank you. The National Family Health Survey-5 (NFHS-5) uses a multistage sampling approach. It stratifies the country into states/union territories and district levels. Then, each stratum is subdivided into Primary Sampling Units based on rural-urban population. Appropriate details have been added to the section titled – Sample Size. 5 Methods Justify why 03 Softwares were used for data analysis. Added explanation in ‘Statistical analysis’ section Thank you for the question. We opted to utilize three different software applications for our data analysis, each serving specific purposes. Microsoft Excel was selected for calculating the Dimension Index (DI) accurately. SPSS was employed for various statistical techniques. R Studio was chosen for its proficiency in data visualization, ensuring that our results are presented in a clear and informative manner. 6 Methods Give a one liner which association will be called strongly linked Added reference to association in ‘Statistical analysis’ section Thank you; here it is. As indicated by Dancy and Reidy, Spearman's rank coefficient of correlation (ρ) with a value >= 0.40 was defined as a strong association. Necessary edits are now made in the Methods section to add this specificity to the manuscript. 7 Methods What is level of confidence/level of significance adopted by you? Mentioned As mentioned in the manuscript, we have considered the standard 5% level of significance. 8 Results Kindly re-design table-2 giving info on composite scores, correlation coefficients and p-values. Title added to Table-2. Declined Thank you for the suggestion. However, we would like to bring to your kind notice that Table-2 represents the correlation coefficient and p-values; since the headings or footnotes were missing, we have added them now in the revised version. We would like to bring to your notice that in Table-2 the row contains women empowerment variables while column contains violence-related variables. Each of the row and column variables has its composite scores. Since table-2 is showing the association between row and column variables there is no way to show the granular data for individual variables when the variables are cross-tabulated. So, we are kindly declining this suggestion. Reviewer # 4 9 Methods You have mentioned only female from each household were taken. Please specify how many households were taken in your study from the data of the NFHS survey. Added To comply with ethical requirements, only one eligible woman per household was selected to answer the questions in the domestic violence section. A total of 72,056 women from the same number of households responded to the domestic violence module. This information has now been added in the revised manuscript. 10 Methods What was the selection criteria of the household from the total households. Added Thank you. As mentioned above, the sampling technique of NFHS has been added to the manuscript. 11 Methods Specify sampling technique in detail from the total household to selection of sample from the sampling frame. Added Thank you. As mentioned above, the sampling technique of NFHS has been added to the manuscript. Reviewer # 5 12 The work is a good addition to knowledge in the field of public health. Overall, the study will achieve study objective if observations made were taken- as applicable. N/A Thank you for appreciating the sincerity of the work. We have greatly benefited from your supportive review. 13 Some sections of the results, discussion, limitation and references will need a revision. Addressed We have attended to each comment you made in track change on the ms. We have additionally ensured that sentences are clear, short and grammatically correct. We hope the revisions have now improved and strengthened the study. 14 If not for data limitation, regression models would have improved the quality of study output. N/A We acknowledge that data limitations can indeed affect the performance and potential improvement of regression models. We have now mentioned the suggested limitations in the manuscript. Comments by Reviewer # 5 directly on the manuscript Section Comment Action taken Response by authors 15 Results Figure title supposed to be below and not above. Done Thank you for pointing out that. The figure title is moved to the bottom of the figure now. 16 Results Only decision-making shows a significantly strong corresponding reduction in the risk of IPV. Others (mobile phone ownership, menstrual hygiene, and land ownership) shows significantly moderate reduction in the risk of IPV. This might need a revision. Added explanation in ms. We would like to clarify that we have employed the association grouping criteria outlined by Dancey and Reidy. According to their guidelines, variables with Spearman's rank correlation coefficient (ρ) falling within the range of 0.30 to 0.39 are categorized as a moderate association, whereas variables with ρ values exceeding 0.40 are classified as strongly associated. We hope this explanation resolves any uncertainty. 17 Results “…. the component of owning property strongly linked to an increased risk of IPV….” --- Not strongly linked…but significantly moderate increased risk of IPV. This might also need a revision. Addressed We have added the details of the scale of association, and as per that, ρ value above 0.40 is considered as strong association. 18 “Employment and earning in cash linked to a slight increase in risk of IPV (0.10).” ---- Not a significant result; and stating it might not be necessary since it also has a very weak correlation. Addressed Agreed. We will remove this line. 19 “When we disaggregated IPV along its three types (physical, sexual and emotional) …” ------ You have at least 3 significant correlations for each of the types of IPV. You will need to report all significant correlates of IPV for a lay reader to understand the table. You will need to state the result as described in the preceding paragraph. Addressed We deeply value this reminder. We have made necessary edits to the part where we discuss Table-2 in the Results section. We have tried our best to put ourselves in the shoes of our readers and walk through all the significant findings systematically. Hope the reading of Table-2 is clearer now. 20 In table – 2 … ----- You might also need to add “Correlation coefficient (p-value)” to each of the columns for easy comprehension of the result in the table by a lay reader. Addressed The table contains values representing the correlation coefficient and p-value. We have added the same in the footnote for more clarity. 21. Discussion Discussion should prioritize significant findings: which should include a statement of finding, comparison with other studies, reasons for the similarities or differences with other studies and/or reasons for the findings, and implications for public health. discussion of women empowerment on sexual IPV should be done; since it is a significant finding. Content added as appropriate Thank you very much for this reminder. We have done this now, to the best of our abilities. We have repeated our top findings, and started each findings on a separate paragraph, and followed it up with discussion of literature showing similar or contrasting findings. We have tried to reflect on the socio-cultural reasons/contexts to the best of our knowledge, taking care to keep everything evidence based, and not slip into opinions. We have added a paragraph in the Discussion to reflect on women empowerment and likely negative association with sexual IPV. Thank you for drawing our attention to this gap. In the part where we had written – hygienic menstrual practices associate with reduced IPV, especially sexual IPV ------ Why the word “especially” since menstrual hygiene can also be said to be moderate correlates of reduced risk of both sexual and emotional IPV; according to the result. Rectified Yes, we acknowledge our error, and we have rectified it accordingly. We had missed ‘emotional IPV’ in this part and have now added it. However, employment increases risk of IPV ------ Please, this statement does not correlates with the result. Employment is not a significant correlate of overall, IPV for this study. Discussing this may not be necessary. Rectified Yes. We have removed this paragraph now. Property ownership increased risk of IPV ------- Any concordance or discordance with other studies? Added scholarship citations Yes, we have cited other literature to establish similarities. 22 Limitations Lack of individual data may also lead to ecological fallacy. Which might be a limitation of the study in drawing conclusion at the individual level. Due to the sensitive nature of IPV, there might have been an under-reporting of IPV among the study participants. Addressed / added Thank you for helping with strengthening the Limitation section. We have incorporated these. Further, we have added ‘Future Directions’ as a specific sub section after Limitations since there are quite a few suggestions that this study shares with readers. 23. References Three references were incomplete Completed Thank you. We have completed the entries now. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers-17July.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0293448.r004
13 Oct 2023 Decision Letter - Hariom Kumar Solanki, Editor Does women empowerment associate with reduced risks of intimate partner violence in India? Evidence from National Family Health Survey-5 PONE-D-23-02776R2 Dear Dr. Roy, 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, Hariom Kumar Solanki, M.D. 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 #3: (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 #3: (No Response) ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #3: (No Response) ****** 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 #3: (No Response) ****** 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 #3: (No Response) ****** 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 #3: (No Response) ****** 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 #3: No ******** https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0293448.r005
Formally Accepted
18 Oct 2023 Acceptance Letter - Hariom Kumar Solanki, Editor PONE-D-23-02776R2 Does women empowerment associate with reduced risks of intimate partner violence in India? Evidence from National Family Health Survey-5 Dear Dr. Roy: 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. Hariom Kumar Solanki Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0293448.r006

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