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PONE-D-23-13586The Planetary Child Health & Enterics Observatory (Plan-EO): a Protocol for an Interdisciplinary Research Initiative and Web-Based Dashboard for Mapping Enteric Infectious Diseases and their Risk Factors and Interventions in LMICsPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Colston,

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Academic Editor

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Does the manuscript provide a valid rationale for the proposed study, with clearly identified and justified research questions?

The research question outlined is expected to address a valid academic problem or topic and contribute to the base of knowledge in the field.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Is the protocol technically sound and planned in a manner that will lead to a meaningful outcome and allow testing the stated hypotheses?

The manuscript should describe the methods in sufficient detail to prevent undisclosed flexibility in the experimental procedure or analysis pipeline, including sufficient outcome-neutral conditions (e.g. necessary controls, absence of floor or ceiling effects) to test the proposed hypotheses and a statistical power analysis where applicable. As there may be aspects of the methodology and analysis which can only be refined once the work is undertaken, authors should outline potential assumptions and explicitly describe what aspects of the proposed analyses, if any, are exploratory.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Is the methodology feasible and described in sufficient detail to allow the work to be replicable?

Descriptions of methods and materials in the protocol should be reported in sufficient detail for another researcher to reproduce all experiments and analyses. The protocol should describe the appropriate controls, sample size calculations, and replication needed to ensure that the data are robust and reproducible.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Have the authors described where all data underlying the findings will be made available when the study is complete?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above and, if applicable, provide comments about issues authors must address before this protocol can be accepted for publication. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about research or publication ethics.

You may also provide optional suggestions and comments to authors that they might find helpful in planning their study.

(Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: This manuscript deals with the presentation and proposition of a protocol for monitoring child health conditions related to diarrheal diseases through the interdisciplinarity of related sciences such as medicine, biology, hydrology, geology, etc.

The authors present a manuscript proposing a project or describing a project, supported by recent literature, with pertinent, current, and interrelated sources to the various sciences. The language of the drafting of the project is clear, objective, and appropriate to the context of the proposition, integrating information from different scientific bases.

In relation to the objectives and the methodology, the scope of the proposal is of a broad scope and transcends current contexts, addressing medium and long-term results for child health, specifically neglected diseases of diarrheal causes.

As part of the methodology and presentation of results, and consequently, of the discussion of the findings and the proposition of the study, the authors present the theoretical and methodological integration in a new phase, differentiating itself from common approaches, thus characterizing the expansion of the scope and the evolution of investigations in the health aspect.

The proposal is very well supported by the need for a study in the context of child health and the need for a new study in the field of health, especially transcending linear relationships based on a single scientific basis or science, but rather on the interdisciplinarity of the health context.

It is, therefore, a bold, up-to-date, and extremely necessary proposal, which will certainly benefit the readers of the journal, whether planning studies in other areas with the same modeling, or participating in the Observatory, as well as the health of the children of this world.

Reviewer #2: Thank you for the opportunity to review this paper.

The underlying scientific logic presented is sound: that the availability of etiology-specific diarrheal diseases, occurrence data could enable better investment of scientific resources in vaccines. Rational is well argued and the authors present a strong justification for filling the gap in terms of a lack of an EID-specific dashboard, especially one that curates good quality geospatial data with a focus on etiology and other attributes relating to EIDs. This in turn could enable various actors to better understand and address these problems.

In the Methods section, the author's specify that they will prefer studies that collected large numbers of samples without specifying what such a number that they look for. It is useful to specify this number. So that while applying the criteria, they can be objective in whether they shall include a study or not.

One of the approaches that the authors could consider is to try and have a maximum possible engagement of various academic and intersectoral stakeholders in choosing of the variable/covariates. In the steps indicated in the methodology, especially in Step A, B and C in the environmental spatial covariates and the subject and household level covariates given that selection of these covariates and variables requires disciplinary/domain/sectoral expertise in multiple disciplines/sectors using CO-production approaches wherever feasible with decision-makers/policymakers, urban/rural local government planners as well as with academia in the various relevant disciplines is worth considering. There have been one health and planetary health studies that have indeed demonstrated the use of CO-production approaches in these kinds of initiatives.

Another aspect that the study authors need to consider is to allude to potential overlaps/linkages with various emerging inter-sectoral frameworks/approaches being used in public health, such as onehealth, health in all policies, intersectoral Action for Health etc. Often, planetary health appears to be attempting to address this same challenge of working across sectors (as opposed to working in sectoral/disciplinary silos).

In the discussion section, the author's mentioned an interactive dashboard, the technology platform underlying the visualization aspect of such a dashboard has not been provided. In the interest of receiving critique/generating post-publication engagement on the protocol, disclosing probable platforms on which such a dashboard is going to be posted could be helpful for the wider community that is engaging in such initiatives.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: JOAO CARLOS ALCHIERI

Reviewer #2: Yes: Prashanth N Srinivas

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The Planetary Child Health & Enterics Observatory (Plan-EO): a Protocol for an Interdisciplinary Research Initiative and Web-Based Dashboard for Mapping Enteric Infectious Diseases and their Risk Factors and Interventions in LMICs

PONE-D-23-13586R1

Dear Dr. Colston,

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.

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Kind regards,

Furqan Kabir

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments: