Experiences of food insecurity in the Roma population before and during the COVID-19 lockdown in Spain

Panmela Soares; Betlem Heras Molins; Mª Asunción Martínez Milán; Mª Félix Rodríguez Camacho; Vicente Clemente-Gómez; Iris Comino; Mª Carmen Davó-Blanes

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0306471

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionFebruary 26, 2024
30 Apr 2024 Decision Letter - George N Chidimbah Munthali, Editor PONE-D-24-07420Experiences of Food Insecurity in the Roma Population Before and During the COVID-19 lockdown in SpainPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Soares, 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. Please submit your revised manuscript by Jun 14 2024 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. 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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 ****** 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 ****** 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 study on Experiences of Food Insecurity in the Roma Population Before and During the COVID-19 lockdown in Spain si well elaborated and written, however the following comments should be considered. 1. Introduction Kindly indicate the implication of the study after the objectives. 2. Methodology How did the authors estimate the number of participants they used for the study? There is a need to provide the selection procedure and the estimation used. Again, the questionnaire should be provided as supplementary. The abstract indicated a different number of participants are stated in the methodology. Please make the necessary corrections Tables and figures cited in methodology: This table and figures seem to the results why citated in Materials and method. Please put the appropriate table for the methodology. 3. Results Figure 2 seems not clear. Authors can present a different figure to make it presentable. Reviewer #2: Though the study is restricted to a specific demographic population in Spain [that of the Roma ethnic group], the focus on the food insecurity impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and implications other such public health conditions could have in future resonates with experiences of a wide spectrum of populations globally, more so in low and middle income contexts. The study therefore contributes to the body of knowledge and literature on how to prepare for and handle food insecurity vulnerabilities as well as other impact they have like adverse health outcomes especially for minorities, and marginalized people across the globe. However some minor revisions are necessary before the paper can be published as follows: Background 1. Authors need to place the paper within the scope of Sustainable development goal to give the paper a global appeal, specifically Goal # 2 on ending hunger and achieving food security and Goal # 3 on sustainable health for all. 2. In their background authors mention gender dis-aggregation with respect to food-insecurity within the Roma population with women considered disproportionately vulnerable on aggregate compared to their male counterparts. I feel however that authors need to go further to highlight potential correlates perpetrating the dichotomy and gender gap within the background. 3. A brief synopsis of the Covid-19 pandemic is necessary in the background to provide a snapshot of why it had to have the impact per-se on food insecurity. Perhaps its etiology, a bit of the incidence and prevalence, if not specifically in Europe then in Spain and even globally. Some highlight of public health measures that were used to avert the spread of the pandemic and the overall impact they had not only on food security but economies across the world would also suffice. Methodology The methodology is well articulated Discussion In their discussion, authors need to highlight what the Spanish government could have done to contain the food insecurity situation or crisis within this vulnerable minority and perhaps marginalized Roma ethnic group. From the findings, it seems they are a socially marginalized and vulnerable community and in essence deliberate government measures or interventions were necessary to ameliorate their plight. That could be included as part of study recommendations and preparedness for futture public health crisis for not only for the Roma populace obu other vulnerable groups in Europe. ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). 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Revision 1
10 Jun 2024 Author Response Journal Requirements: 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf Response: The manuscript has been reviewed and conforms to the style requirements of PLOS ONE. 2. Please include a complete copy of PLOS’ questionnaire on inclusivity in global research in your revised manuscript. Our policy for research in this area aims to improve transparency in the reporting of research performed outside of researchers’ own country or community. The policy applies to researchers who have travelled to a different country to conduct research, research with Indigenous populations or their lands, and research on cultural artefacts. The questionnaire can also be requested at the journal’s discretion for any other submissions, even if these conditions are not met. Please find more information on the policy and a link to download a blank copy of the questionnaire here: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/best-practices-in-research-reporting. Please upload a completed version of your questionnaire as Supporting Information when you resubmit your manuscript. Response: We have completed and sent the questionnaire as supplementary information. 3. 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. Response: The information has been reviewed. 4. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure: "This work was supported by the Chair of Gipsy Culture, University of Alicante. Call: BOUA 8/10/2019. Text editing costs were supported by AICO, Generalitat Valenciana (2022- 2024). Call: CIAICO/2021/019." Please state what role the funders took in the study. If the funders had no role, please state: "The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript." If this statement is not correct you must amend it as needed. Please include this amended Role of Funder statement in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. Response: We have included information on the role of the funder in the cover letter of the manuscript. And also, in the funder's section. 5. Please provide a complete Data Availability Statement in the submission form, ensuring you include all necessary access information or a reason for why you are unable to make your data freely accessible. If your research concerns only data provided within your submission, please write "All data are in the manuscript and/or supporting information files" as your Data Availability Statement. Response: All data are in the manuscript and/or supporting information files. This statement has been included in the submission. 6. Your ethics statement should only appear in the Methods section of your manuscript. If your ethics statement is written in any section besides the Methods, please delete it from any other section. Response: We have removed this information from the statement’s section. 7. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. Response: The list of references has been revised. Review Comments to the Author Reviewer #1: The study on Experiences of Food Insecurity in the Roma Population Before and During the COVID-19 lockdown in Spain si well elaborated and written, however the following comments should be considered. Response: We appreciated your time in reviewing this work. In this new version, we have incorporated the suggestions of the reviewers, and we believe that this has contributed to improvements in the manuscript. 1. Introduction Kindly indicate the implication of the study after the objectives. Response: We have included the implications of the study after the objective. See last paragraph of the introduction. 2. Methodology How did the authors estimate the number of participants they used for the study? Response: A convenience sample was estimated, determined by budgetary considerations. There is a need to provide the selection procedure and the estimation used. Response: In this new version, we have included in the methodology information on the selection procedure for participants. See second paragraph of the methodology. Again, the questionnaire should be provided as supplementary. Response: We have included a new table in the methodology with the questionnaire variables. Please see table 1. The abstract indicated a different number of participants are stated in the methodology. Please make the necessary corrections. Response: A convenience sample of approximately 400 persons was estimated (as indicated in the methodology). In the end, a sample of 468 people was reached (as indicated in the summary and results). We have changed the wording of the methodology section to clarify this aspect. See the second paragraph of the methodology. Tables and figures cited in methodology: This table and figures seem to the results why citated in Materials and method. Please put the appropriate table for the methodology. Response: In response to the reviewer's comments, we have included a new table in the methodology with the questionnaire variables. Please see table 1. 3. Results Figure 2 seems not clear. Authors can present a different figure to make it presentable. Response: In this new version we have changed figure 1. See the figure 1. Reviewer #2: Though the study is restricted to a specific demographic population in Spain [that of the Roma ethnic group], the focus on the food insecurity impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and implications other such public health conditions could have in future resonates with experiences of a wide spectrum of populations globally, more so in low and middle income contexts. The study therefore contributes to the body of knowledge and literature on how to prepare for and handle food insecurity vulnerabilities as well as other impact they have like adverse health outcomes especially for minorities, and marginalized people across the globe. However some minor revisions are necessary before the paper can be published as follows: Response: We appreciated your time in reviewing this work. In this new version, we have incorporated the suggestions of the reviewers, and we believe that this has contributed to improvements in the manuscript. Background 1. Authors need to place the paper within the scope of Sustainable development goal to give the paper a global appeal, specifically Goal # 2 on ending hunger and achieving food security and Goal # 3 on sustainable health for all. Response: In response to the reviewer's comments, we provided information in the introduction related to the Sustainable development goal. Please see fourth paragraph of the introduction. 2. In their background authors mention gender dis-aggregation with respect to food-insecurity within the Roma population with women considered disproportionately vulnerable on aggregate compared to their male counterparts. I feel however that authors need to go further to highlight potential correlates perpetrating the dichotomy and gender gap within the background. Response: We have included in the introduction information on the factors related to the gender gap. See the third paragraph of the introduction. 3. A brief synopsis of the Covid-19 pandemic is necessary in the background to provide a snapshot of why it had to have the impact per-se on food insecurity. Perhaps its etiology, a bit of the incidence and prevalence, if not specifically in Europe then in Spain and even globally. Some highlight of public health measures that were used to avert the spread of the pandemic and the overall impact they had not only on food security but economies across the world would also suffice. Response: In response to the reviewer's comments, we provide information in the introduction on the Covid-19. In addition, we include information on public health measures taken to contain the spread of the virus. Please see the seventh, eighth and ninth paragraphs of the introduction. Discussion In their discussion, authors need to highlight what the Spanish government could have done to contain the food insecurity situation or crisis within this vulnerable minority and perhaps marginalized Roma ethnic group. From the findings, it seems they are a socially marginalized and vulnerable community and in essence deliberate government measures or interventions were necessary to ameliorate their plight. That could be included as part of study recommendations and preparedness for futture public health crisis for not only for the Roma populace obu other vulnerable groups in Europe. Response: We have included a paragraph with recommendations in the discussion. See sixth paragraph of the discussion. ________________________________________ Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0306471.r002
18 Jun 2024 Decision Letter - George N Chidimbah Munthali, Editor Experiences of Food Insecurity in the Roma Population Before and During the COVID19 lockdown in Spain PONE-D-24-07420R1 Dear Dr. Iris Comino 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. An invoice will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager® and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. If you have any questions relating to publication charges, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. 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, George N Chidimbah Munthali Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0306471.r003

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