Structural and social determinants of health: The multi-ethnic study of atherosclerosis

Lilah M. Besser; Sarah N. Forrester; Milla Arabadjian; Michael P. Bancks; Margaret Culkin; Kathleen M. Hayden; Elaine T. Le; Isabelle Pierre-Louis; Jana A. Hirsch

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0313625

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJuly 26, 2024
11 Sep 2024 Decision Letter - Andrea Da Porto, Editor Transfer Alert This paper was transferred from another journal. As a result, its full editorial history (including decision letters, peer reviews and author responses) may not be present. PONE-D-24-30988Structural and Social Determinants of Health: The Multi-Ethnic Study of AtherosclerosisPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Besser, 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 Oct 26 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. 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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. 2. Please include captions for your Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information. 3. 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 If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references.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 If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] 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 Reviewer #3: Partly Reviewer #4: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: N/A Reviewer #4: Yes ****** 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: Yes Reviewer #3: Yes Reviewer #4: 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 Reviewer #3: Yes Reviewer #4: 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: 1.The manuscript is technically sound, and the data do support the conclusions. 2. The statistical analysis has been performed appropriately and rigorously. 3. The authors have made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available. 4. The manuscript is presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English. Reviewer #2: This is a well written paper. It has addressed the objectives well. The review used a big data with many variables, which is the strength of the study. However is there any theoritical framework that support the domains used. Reviewer #3: Review Report Scope; Inconsistent Abstract:Lacks clarity -Inconsistent among the objective and the results Background -Not focused -Weak -Less detailed -Shortened -avoid ... from line 74 Methods - Not objective based -Illigiblity criteria is not intact -The population and the outcome is not well described -The type of studies is not presented -Who arbitrated in case of agreement among reviewers -Whether the retracted publications are included? Results and discussion -Not logical -Lacks flow from general to specific -Should be geraed with objective -Is too long -The discussion is not objective oriented, properly explained and referenced Regards, Reviewer #4: This paper includes all categories of SDOH as defined by the CDC, except for "health care and quality." This would be an important SDOH to look at as it is intertwined with the "inequalities" assessed in the paper. I like that the paper uses very simple methods to identify gaps in research that can be utilized and further studied through MESA. I would be curious to see how the variables in the 47 studies that combine MESA with other cohort studies differ in SDOH variables compared to the MESA-only studies (sub-analysis). ****** 6. 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: Kassa Demissie Abdi (PhD) Reviewer #2: No Reviewer #3: No Reviewer #4: No ******** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: MESA_SDOH_Paper_July26_noendnote.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0313625.r001
Revision 1
24 Oct 2024 Author Response Reviewer #1: 1.The manuscript is technically sound, and the data do support the conclusions. 2. The statistical analysis has been performed appropriately and rigorously. 3. The authors have made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available. 4. The manuscript is presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English. Response: Thank you for your review and comments. Reviewer #2: This is a well written paper. It has addressed the objectives well. The review used a big data with many variables, which is the strength of the study. However is there any theoritical framework that support the domains used. Response: Thank you for your review and comment. Yes, we used the Schulz framework for Social Determinants of Health and Environmental Health Promotion, which we made more explicit in lines 95-102: “Our literature review is informed by the Schulz framework of Social Determinants of Health and Environmental Health Promotion, and thus we categorized the SSDOH according the categories outlined in the framework as follows: 1) macrosocial/structural factors (e.g., residential segregation and ideologies such as racism); 2) individual-level inequalities (e.g., employment, income, health insurance, and education); 3) built environment (e.g., land use, transportation access, and park space); 4) social context (e.g., neighborhood social cohesion and neighborhood socioeconomic status); 5) stressors (e.g., air pollution, chronic stress, violence and crime); 6) social integration and social support (e.g., social participation and social support) [13]”. Reviewer #4: This paper includes all categories of SDOH as defined by the CDC, except for "health care and quality." This would be an important SDOH to look at as it is intertwined with the "inequalities" assessed in the paper. Response: We originally included papers that examine health insurance coverage under the “Inequalities” category. The results for those studies are reported on lines 275-276: “Consistently, access to health insurance was associated with better health outcomes [82, 195, 278, 284].” For clarity, we have added health insurance as an example of the inequalities category listed in the methods section: lines 95-102: “Our literature review is informed by the Schulz framework of Social Determinants of Health and Environmental Health Promotion, and thus we categorized the SSDOH according the categories outlined in the framework as follows: 1) macrosocial/structural factors (e.g., residential segregation and ideologies such as racism); 2) individual-level inequalities (e.g., employment, income, health insurance, and education); 3) built environment (e.g., land use, transportation access, and park space); 4) social context (e.g., neighborhood social cohesion and neighborhood socioeconomic status); 5) stressors (e.g., air pollution, chronic stress, violence and crime); 6) social integration and social support (e.g., social participation and social support) [13]”. None of the studies included data on health care access, which we have now added to the results section on Built Environment (lines 319-320) as follows: “No papers focused on health care access (e.g., density of health care facilities in the neighborhood).” I like that the paper uses very simple methods to identify gaps in research that can be utilized and further studied through MESA. Response: Thank you. I would be curious to see how the variables in the 47 studies that combine MESA with other cohort studies differ in SDOH variables compared to the MESA-only studies (sub-analysis). Response: We have added the following text to the results section (lines 517-524): “Among these 47 papers, 85% included macrosocial measures, 15% included inequality measures, 0% included built environment measures, 11% included social context measures, 15% included stressor measures, and 6% included social support measures (percentages not mutually exclusive since some papers include more than one SSDOH). In comparison to the full sample of papers, those combining MESA data with other cohorts more often included macrosocial measures (85% vs 57%), fewer (none) included built environment measures (0% versus 14%), and fewer included stressor measures (15% versus 34%) (Table 2).” Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: ResponsetoReviewers_Oct22.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0313625.r002
29 Oct 2024 Decision Letter - Andrea Da Porto, Editor Structural and social determinants of health: The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis PONE-D-24-30988R1 Dear Dr. Lilah M. Besser, 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, Andrea Da Porto Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0313625.r003
Formally Accepted
5 Nov 2024 Acceptance Letter - Andrea Da Porto, Editor PONE-D-24-30988R1 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Besser, I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now being handed over to our production team. At this stage, our production department will prepare your paper for publication. This includes ensuring the following: * All references, tables, and figures are properly cited * All relevant supporting information is included in the manuscript submission, * There are no issues that prevent the paper from being properly typeset If revisions are needed, the production department will contact you directly to resolve them. If no revisions are needed, you will receive an email when the publication date has been set. At this time, we do not offer pre-publication proofs to authors during production of the accepted work. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few weeks to review your paper and let you know the next and final steps. Lastly, if your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. 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. If we can help with anything else, please email us at customercare@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Andrea Da Porto Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0313625.r004

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