PONE-D-23-27170Interpersonal discrimination and depressive symptoms among older Black and African American adultsPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Arnold,

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 manuscript represents a significant contribution to both the academic realm and healthcare services by aiming to determine the relationship between various forms of interpersonal racial/ethnic discrimination and the severity of depressive symptoms. Overall, the work is well-conducted. However, a lack of crucial details that would ensure the robustness of the research has been noted, as highlighted by the reviewers. It is imperative that the suggestions and critiques detailed by them are considered and incorporated, aiming to enhance and enrich the study. Such a process will not only elevate the manuscript's quality but also broaden its impact and relevance in the field of study.

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Kind regards,

Ricardo de Mattos Russo Rafael, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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3. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure: 

   "This work was supported by the University of Michigan Depression Center (depressioncenter.org/), Strategic Translational Research Award to TDA. TDA was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health [grant number T32 MH073553-11] (nimh.nih.gov). CAP was supported by the National Institute on Aging [grant number K01AG059829] (nia.nih.gov). DTM was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse [grant number R01DA045705] (nida.nih.gov). This study was also supported by the National Institutes of Health [grant number P30 AG015281] (nih.gov), UMHealthResearch.org supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences [grant number UL1TR002240] (ncats.nih.gov), and the Michigan Center for Urban African American Aging Research (https://mcuaaar.org/)." 

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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: Partly

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: I Don't Know

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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: No

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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

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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: Title: "Interpersonal Discrimination and Depressive Symptoms among Older Black and African American Adults"

The article aims to investigate the association between recent experiences of discrimination and the presentation and severity of depressive symptoms among a sample of older Black and African American adults in the United States. The objectives include determining whether various forms of interpersonal racial/ethnic discrimination are linked to the severity of depressive symptoms, as well as establishing whether vigilant coping with discrimination is associated with depressive symptom severity in this demographic.

The introduction is proficient in establishing conceptual foundations essential for the discourse and provides a solid basis for the subsequent analyses. The methodology employed is consistent with the study's purpose and executed competently, yielding highly significant findings for the study of racism and its influence on psychological distress. The results and analyses are of great value to the academic field, offering unique and underexplored contributions compared to other studies on this topic.

Particularly noteworthy are the associations identified between vigilance to discrimination and symptom severity. These reveal a positive correlation between vigilant coping and depression symptoms, indicating that a higher level of vigilant coping is linked to more severe affective symptoms of depression, though not with somatic symptom severity. This specific point opens up extensive possibilities for future studies, including those addressing diagnostic and nosographic issues within psychiatry, which must incorporate the production of psychological distress in relation to structural racism into their analytical scope.

This study makes substantial contributions to the field and receives a favorable recommendation for publication.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript approaches a highly important subject although many adjustments are needed. The manuscript aimed to determine whether different forms of interpersonal racial/ethnic discrimination were associated with depressive symptom severity, and determine whether vigilant coping with discrimination was associated with depressive symptom severity among older Black and African American adults. It addresses pertinent issues that could enhance our understanding of interpersonal racial/ethnic discrimination effects. However, it will be necessary to improve important aspects such as format, concepts, methods, results, and references.

Comments

1 - First of all it's important the paper follows the Plos One Submission Guidelines (Especially Reference style, Headings, Page and line numbers).

2 - Introduction - For greater clarity, it would be interesting to eliminate the subsections.

3 - Methods / Participants - “Participants were adults aged 50 and older who identified as Black or African American and who reported they had either used alcohol, cannabis, or prescription opioids or sedative tranquilizers at least once in the past month”. - Why were people selected who reported they had either used alcohol, cannabis, prescription opioids, or sedative tranquilizers at least once in the past month? It would be great to specify.

4 - Methods / Measures / Vigilant coping - Are there other recent studies that used the Heightened Vigilance Scale (HSV)?

5 - Methods / Measures / Covariates - Other covariates were tested in the model? Income? Marital Status? Employment Status?

6 - Methods / Analytic strategy - It would be important to specify the model’s adjustments, residual deviance, and which function was used.

7 - Results - It would be highly important to present results minutely. Please, present the crude and adjusted model. Describing the power of the associations found, not only the p-value.

8 - Conclusions - It would be great to present the conclusions in only one section.

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If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Tiago Braga do Espírito Santo

Reviewer #2: No

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Interpersonal discrimination and depressive symptoms among older Black and African American adults

PONE-D-23-27170R1

Dear Dr. Arnold,

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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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,

Ricardo de Mattos Russo Rafael, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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: All comments have been addressed

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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

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

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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: 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

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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: The present study presents scientific quality and academic relevance for publication.

The authors responded competently to the comments raised by the reviewers.

the data are collected and the analyzes were carried out competently and carefully.

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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: Yes: Tiago Braga do Espírito Santo

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