PONE-D-23-04366

Subjective walkability perceived by children and adolescents living in urban environments: A study protocol for participatory methods and scale development in the WALKI-MUC project

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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: Partly

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?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception, at the time of publication. 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

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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

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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: Thank you for the opportunity to review the study protocol entitled “Subjective walkability perceived by children and adolescents living in urban environments: A study protocol for participatory methods and scale development in the WALKI-MUC project”. The paper is well written, with an interesting research design that I think is suitable for publication. I think that, before publication, there are some issues that the authors may consider. My main concern is that, despite the authors have written a long introduction, there are some misleading concepts (on walking, physical activity, walkability…). Specifically, my suggestions are:

1. In the introduction, there is a need to better conceptualize the physical activity terminology. Physical activity is not the same as walking or exercise. This is particularly confusing in the headline “The young, their physical activity level and perceived environment” (L56). My suggestion is to start this section with a brief definition of walking and physical activity to justify why the study will focus on the walking environment (instead of a general PA-supportive environment). And if it is the case that the authors include broader aspects of physical activity beyond walking, there is a need to reframe the text (starting with the title).

2. In the same section (the one that starts in L56), the authors made a great effort to summarize the previous literature linking built environment features with YC physical activity, and also why subjective measures must be taken into account. However, despite all this information, there is no clear framework on how subjectiveness connects with the socio-ecological framework. My suggestion will be to include a figure that serves as a conceptual framework, adapting the socio-ecologic framework to the conceptual framework of this study (e.g. how do person characteristics modify the association between built environment features and YC physical activity? How perceptions are important in this?

3. I think there is some confusion with the concept of walkability. Despite some authors use walkability as a broader concept that can be applied to all supportive physical activity-friendly environments, there is evidence that the role of different environments impacts differently on physical activity, and thus, on health. For example, places, where YC might do exercise or vigorous physical activity, are not conceptually the same as places that favor active walking to school. This needs to be clarified in the introduction.

4. I am surprised that neither the introduction, objectives nor study design takes into account social inequalities, as they affect perceptions, where people live, and their physical activity. The only mention comes from the associations in objective 3. For example, why not consider neighborhood SES in the study design and area selection? How will the authors be sure that low-SES or ethnic minorities participate in the study? This is crucial, as this will create measures that will be biased against the privileged population.

5. L33: Regarding phase 1 I have a couple of questions that I think will not be difficult for the authors to clarify. (1) Are boys are girls in the same groups? Previous evidence suggests that (in adults) men can silence women’s discourses, and thus, many phtovoice projects separate them. (2) Why only an opening and a closing session? Previous research using photovoice usually have 4, 5 or 6 sessions to create collective discourses through different interactions.

6. L585. How will the authors deal with the potential same source bias regarding the association between neighborhood perceptions and self-reported physical activity?

Reviewer #2: The article describes in detail a protocol for a study of children and adolescents' perception of walkability. The work is very well organised and the methodological procedures used are well justified. The authors identify the contributions of the project results to the area of knowledge and to inform public policy on urban design. The combined use of qualitative research strategies is an innovative aspect of the protocol. The careful description will allow other studies to replicate the qualitative strategies in other contexts.

I would only suggest a paragraph in the introduction and abstract stating that this paper intends to describe the protocol of a study. Although it is in the title of the article, the introduction and abstract should also contain this information.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Subjective walkability perceived by children and adolescents living in urban environments: A study protocol for participatory methods and scale development in the WALKI-MUC project

PONE-D-23-04366R1

Dear Mag. Scheller,

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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Michał Suchanek, D.Sc.

Academic Editor

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Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Given the current quality of the article and the overall process since submission, I suggest accepting the article.

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

**********

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

**********

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

**********

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

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception, at the time of publication. 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

**********

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

**********

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: Thank you very much for the opportunity to review the revised version of the manuscript “Subjective walkability perceived by children and adolescents living in urban environments: A study protocol for participatory methods and scale development in the WALKI-MUC project”. I would like to thank the authors for their response. They have taken their time to answer every question that I had on the original submission. I find this version with a stronger conceptual background, and I am waiting to see the results of this study.

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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

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