PONE-D-23-35666Anaemia among adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women in the south coastal region of Bangladesh: prevalence and risk factorsPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Ara,

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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

The study was conducted in Max Nutri WASH program zones but the present title of the research generalizes the issue. Kindly reconsider the title.

Kindly address the issues raised by the reviewers.

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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: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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: The manuscript is technically sound and written in a standard english. It is an important scientific research as anaemia is a serious public health problem among girls and women within reproductive age of the developing countries. The data also supported the conclusion and statistical analysis was done appropriately. There are some restricitions about the data availability. The author must be specified about the data availability statements. Need to revise the keywords and syntax error.

Reviewer #2: Introduction:

• Line 55-56: “Anaemia is determined by a decreasing red blood cell count below the cut-off point set by the World Health Organization”- is a wrong statement. What WHO says is- “Anaemia is a condition in which the number of red blood cells or the haemoglobin concentration within them is lower than normal”. Please use correct clinical terms to define a clinical condition like anaemia.

• Line 76: Reference missing.

• Line 86: Grammatically incorrect.

• Line 87: Reference missing.

• Line 92: Grammatically incorrect.

• What is the justification of conducting the survey in south coastal region of Bangladesh?

• In title, the region is mentioned as the south coastal region of Bangladesh whereas in line 101 the region is mentioned as rural southern region. Which one is correct? Please be consistent.

Methods:

• How is the “"Max Nutri-WASH" initiative connected to the reported study? This is unclear. Please detail this.

• Line 117: desired precision of what? Non-response rate of what? Please mention specifically.

• Line 123: standard or standardized? How did the authors standardize the questionnaire? Please clarify.

• Please add the English and Bangla versions of the questionnaire as supplementary files.

• Line 144-145: Reference missing.

• Ethical considerations, Line 164: “assent (<18 years) from their parents/caregivers”. But assent should be taken from the adolescents and that will be supported by subsequent consent taken from their caregivers. Please check and modify.

• Ethical considerations, Line 166-167: Giving assurance about maintaining confidentiality is important, but maintaining the confidentiality is more important. Was it maintained? Please mention.

• Statistical analysis: Predictors or explanatory variables or independent variables? Please use only one term consistently.

Results:

• Line 183. Five or more groups out of how many food groups? Please be specific and detail the MDD-W cut-off in the relevant section.

• Were all the clusters of same size? If not, were the reported proportions and the estimates weighted as proportional to size? Please explain.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Anaemia among adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women in the southern rural region of Bangladesh: prevalence and risk factors

PONE-D-23-35666R1

Dear Dr. Ara,

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,

Biswajit Pal, M.SC., Ph.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 #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

**********

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

Reviewer #1: 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 #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

**********

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: Authors have adequately addressed the comments raised in a previous round of review and this manuscript is now acceptable for publication.

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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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