PONE-D-22-31731Documenting the implementation processes and effects of the data use initiatives in primary health care settings in Tanzania: A before-after mixed methods study protocolPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Kalolo,

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Ermel Johnson, MD, MPH, PhD candidate

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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2. We note that the grant information you provided in the ‘Funding Information’ and ‘Financial Disclosure’ sections do not match.

When you resubmit, please ensure that you provide the correct grant numbers for the awards you received for your study in the ‘Funding Information’ section.

3. Thank you for stating the following in the Competing Interests section:

“Jennie Jaribu works with UNICEF, Tanzania. Other authors declare no competing interests.”

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4. Thank you for stating the following in the Acknowledgments Section of your manuscript:

“The authors wish to thank the teams from Data.Fi, UNICEF, CERHI, PORALG and the councils participating in the data use intervention for their inputs during the preparation of the theory of change. We are also grateful to UNICEF Tanzania for funding this study.”

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.

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“Jennie Jaribu works with UNICEF, Tanzania. Other authors declare no competing interests.”

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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?

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: No

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: How was the sample size calculated in the component aiming at establishing the effects of data use initiatives?

Provide a brief description of the data use initiatives so as to allow for understanding what the standard you are measuring the process of implementation against is and provide a reference

Reviewer #2: For research protocols always use futuristic tense "will be", lines 144 and 145

Line 122: "fastness" instead of "fidelity"

Line 125: "unravel" instead of "disentangle"

Line 212: Mention the contextual influences

Line 213: "The study will adopt the following steps" instead of "we will follow the following steps"

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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: Yes: Hadiza Mudi

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Documenting the implementation processes and effects of the data use initiatives in primary health care settings in Tanzania: A before-after mixed methods study protocol

PONE-D-22-31731R1

Dear Dr. Kalolo,

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.

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Kind regards,

Maryam Afshari

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

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 #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: 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 #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: 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 #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: 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 #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: 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 #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: 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 #2: Q4. The dissemination process on how the results from the study will be shared with participating districts and health facilities as well as dissemination through scientific conference presentation and peer reviewed journals have been mentioned (line 412-416) however, Data sharing have been stated not to be applicable to the article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the study (line 490-492).

Authors have addressed most of the concerns and suggestions earlier raised, they have given satisfactory answers to the questions and has made the necessary revisions.

Article is now in good shape to go for the publication.

Reviewer #3: The authors have adequately addressed the reviewers' comments from the previous round. The changes made have improved the clarity and quality of the manuscript. Here are some additional suggestions:

-The description of the data use initiatives could be expanded slightly to provide more context and details for readers who may not be familiar with the background. For example, roughly how many facilities are involved, when did implementation start, who are the key partners involved etc.

-In the methods section, please clarify the timeline of data collection relative to the initiative implementation. For example, will baseline data be collected before implementation begins? How long after implementation starts will endline data be collected?

-For qualitative data, consider mentioning target sample sizes or when saturation is expected to be reached.

-In the limitations, the authors could comment on risks of contamination between intervention and control arms given they are in the same regions.

-Do double check the referenced figures/tables align with the numbered lists in text.

Overall the study protocol is well designed and described. The authors have been responsive to reviewer feedback. Pending the minor clarifications above, I would recommend accepting this revised manuscript for publication, assuming the other reviewer is satisfied with the changes made. The protocol details an important evaluation that can inform implementation and scale up of data use initiatives.

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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 #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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