Spatial distribution of mixed milk feeding and its determinants among mothers of infants aged under 6 months in Ethiopia: Spatial and geographical weighted regression analysis

Mekuriaw Nibret Aweke; Muluken Chanie Agimas; Moges Tadesse Abebe; Tigabu Kidie Tesfie; Meron Asmamaw Alemayehu; Werkneh Melkie Tilahun; Gebrie Getu Alemu; Worku Necho Asferie

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0317089

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJuly 11, 2024
11 Jul 2024 Author Response https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0317089.r001
10 Sep 2024 Decision Letter - Jennifer Tucker, Editor PONE-D-24-28246Spatial distribution of mixed milk feeding and its determinants among mothers of infants aged under 6 months in Ethiopia: spatial and geographical weighted regression analysis.PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Aweke, 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 note that we have only been able to secure a single reviewer to assess your manuscript. We are issuing a decision on your manuscript at this point to prevent further delays in the evaluation of your manuscript. Please be aware that the editor who handles your revised manuscript might find it necessary to invite additional reviewers to assess this work once the revised manuscript is submitted. 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Please amend the manuscript submission data (via Edit Submission) to include author Dr. Tigabu Kidie Tesfie. 5. We note you have included a table to which you do not refer in the text of your manuscript. Please ensure that you refer to Table 1 in your text; if accepted, production will need this reference to link the reader to the Table. [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 ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 3. 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Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: 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: Title: “Spatial distribution of mixed milk feeding and its determinants among mothers of infants aged under 6 months in Ethiopia: spatial and geographical weighted regression analysis” Here is an in-depth report addressing each of the checklist items and providing specific sections where issues have been identified: Title and Abstract: 1. (a) The title is well crafted. (b) In the ABSTRACT: • Method Section: You need to clearly describe the total weighted sample of infants used in your study. • Result Section: Include the weighted prevalence of Mixed Milk Feeding (MMF) in Ethiopia. Additionally, it's recommended to include numerical results such as the global Moran's I with p-value, the percentage of the maximum cluster size per population, etc. • Keywords: Why are the keywords missing? Please include them in your abstract and arrange them according to scientific standards. • Overall: The abstract does not effectively convey what was done in the study, so revisions are needed for clarity and completeness. INTRODUCTION: 2. The introduction section presents the following issues: • In paragraph 5: “Studies have shown that breastfeeding improves the emotional and psychological connection between mother and infant.” What are the studies? Lacks a relevant litrature. • In paragraph 9: “To this day, various research has been carried out in Ethiopia to evaluate the exclusive breast feeding among children, including the bottle feeding.” Please put the relevance various research reference to establish the rationale. • Overall, the introduction is well written. METHODS AND MATERIALS: 3. Data source: The description of the setting, and locations is correctly provided. I think this is a secondary data analysis, the absence of eligibility criteria and participant selection details is acceptable so I didn’t see such thing in detail. 4. Sampling procedure and population: Do you believe that 'all living infants under 6 months of age' amounts to only 524 (based on the 2019 EMDHS)? If not, how was the sample of 524 infants selected? Please provide a clear description of the selection procedure. 5. Data management and analysis: Please put the version of STATA. “We remove missing values from our analysis by using the STATA drop command in combination with a logical or conditional statement.” But you mentioned “Missing data were managed based on the DHS guideline” under data source section. How do you relate those two sentences? Do you believe that “Removing” is considered as the management of missing data analysis? If not, mange your missing data based on imputation or other handling method. 6. Please thoroughly document all methods under the 'Spatial Scan Statistics' and 'Spatial Regression' sections, including relevant supporting references. RESULTS: 7. Please format the table title clearly (e.g., 'Problem, Population, Area, 2024, n=') and ensure the tables are cited throughout the document with cross-references. 8. Prevalence of mixed milk feeding in Ethiopia:” In this study, the overall prevalence of MMF was 10.12% (95% CI 7.8, 13.01), with regional variations observed across Ethiopia”. The results were not displayed in any tables or graphs. Please provide the prevalence data in either a table or a graph, and reference any tables used. DISCUSSION: 9. The 'Discussion' section can be generally divided into 3 separate paragraphs. 1) Introductory paragraph/rationale of the study, 2) Intermediate paragraphs/compare and contrast with the most recent and relevant literature, 3) Concluding paragraph/indicating future directions. Then address such things as well. 10. While the manuscript mentions the study utilized nationally representative data as a strength indicating there is adequate power to detect the true effect of exposures. However, it does not provide a power calculation to support this claim. Recommendation This comprehensive report outlines the issues identified throughout the manuscript, with specific sections and requires substantial minor revisions to address these concerns and enhance the clarity, relevance, and presentation of results. After making the necessary minor revisions with re-write of manuscript, a re-evaluation is recommended for considering publication. ****** 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: Abdu Hailu Shibeshi ******** [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: Reviewer comments.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0317089.r002
Revision 1
30 Sep 2024 Author Response PLOS ONE Editorial Office Date 19 September 2024 Dear Editor, Subject: Resubmission of Revised Manuscript PONE-D-24-28246 I am pleased to resubmit the revised version of our manuscript titled "Spatial distribution of mixed milk feeding and its determinants among mothers of infants aged under 6 months in Ethiopia: spatial and geographical weighted regression analysis" (Manuscript ID: PONE-D-24-28246). We have carefully addressed the comments and suggestions provided by the reviewers and editorial team. In the accompanying response document, we have detailed how each point was addressed, and we have made appropriate revisions to the manuscript. We believe these changes have improved the quality of our work, and we are hopeful that the revised version now meets PLOS ONE's publication standards. Thank you for the opportunity to revise and resubmit our manuscript. We look forward to your feedback and hope for a favorable decision. Sincerely, Mekuriaw Nibret Aweke Correspondent Author Comments from the Academic Editor and Responses 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. Authors’ Response: Dear editor, Thank you for the opportunity to submit our manuscript. We have corrected the document to fulfill PLOS ONE publication requirements. 2. We noticed you have some minor occurrence of overlapping text with the following previous publication(s), which needs to be addressed. Authors’ Response: Dear editor, Thank you for your feedback. We appreciate your feedback regarding the overlap with previous publications. We have carefully reviewed the sections identified and have made the revisions and correct citations. 3. Please confirm at this time whether or not your submission contains all raw data required to replicate the results of your study. Authors must share the “minimal data set” for their submission. Authors’ Response: Dear editor, Thank you for your reminder regarding data availability. At this time, our submission does not include all raw data required to replicate the results of our study. The raw data used in our study, which is the ‘2019 Ethiopian Mini Demographic and Health Survey (miniDHS),’ can be accessed through the DHS Program (www.dhsprogram.com) as per their data access instructions. We mentioned this in the main document and under the data availability section. 4. Please amend the manuscript submission data (via Edit Submission) to include author Dr. Tigabu Kidie Tesfie. Authors’ Response: Dear editor, Thank you for your notification. We have amended the manuscript submission to include Dr. Tigabu Kidie Tesfie as an author. The updated author list has been submitted through the journal’s submission system. 5. We note you have included a table to which you do not refer in the text of your manuscript. Please ensure that you refer to Table 1 in your text; if accepted, production will need this reference to link the reader to the Table. Authors’ Response: Dear editor, Thank you for your feedback. We have updated the manuscript to include a reference to Table 1 in the text. Comments from Reviewer #1 and Responses (a) The title is well crafted. (b) In the ABSTRACT: Method Section: You need to clearly describe the total weighted sample of infants used in your study. Authors’ Response: Dear reviewer, Thank you for your feedback. We have updated the Method section of the ABSTRACT to clearly describe the total weighted sample of infants used in the study. The revised text now includes the specific number of infants in the weighted sample. Reviewers’ Comments Result Section: Include the weighted prevalence of Mixed Milk Feeding (MMF) in Ethiopia. Additionally, it's recommended to include numerical results such as the global Moran's I with p-value, the percentage of the maximum cluster size per population, etc. Authors’ Response: Dear reviewer, Thank you for your suggestion and comments. We have included the weighted prevalence of Mixed Milk Feeding (MMF) with the numerical results of the global Moran's I with p-value and the maximum spatial cluster size per population in the abstract section of the methods and result parts. We appreciate your relevant feedback. Reviewers’ Comments Keywords: Why are the keywords missing? Please include them in your abstract and arrange them according to scientific standards. Authors’ Response: Dear reviewer, Thank you for your feedback. We have included the keywords in the main document. Thank you again for your valuable comments. Reviewers’ Comments Overall: The abstract does not effectively convey what was done in the study, so revisions are needed for clarity and completeness. Authors’ Response: Dear Reviewer, Thank you for your feedback. We have revised the abstract section accordingly. Thank you again for your unreserved comments and suggestions. Reviewers’ Comments In paragraph 5: “Studies have shown that breastfeeding improves the emotional and psychological connection between mother and infant.” What are the studies? Lacks relevant literature. Authors’ Response: Dear reviewer, Thank you for your feedback. We have cited the relevant literature which showed “breastfeeding improves the emotional and psychological connection between mother and infant” in the main document. Thank you again for your valuable comments. Reviewers’ Comments In paragraph 9: “To this day, various research has been carried out in Ethiopia to evaluate the exclusive breastfeeding among children, including bottle feeding.” Please put the relevant various research references to establish the rationale. Authors’ Response: Dear reviewer, Thank you for your suggestion. We have added the relevant studies’ citations to this statement. Thank you again for your relevant comments. Reviewers’ Comments Overall, the introduction is well written. Authors’ Response: Dear reviewer, Thank you for your feedback! We are glad to hear that you found the introduction well written. Reviewers’ Comments Data source: The description of the setting, and locations is correctly provided. I think this is a secondary data analysis; the absence of eligibility criteria and participant selection details is acceptable so I didn’t see such things in detail. Authors’ Response: Dear reviewer, Thank you for your feedback. We appreciate your understanding regarding the nature of our data since it is secondary data analysis. As noted, the absence of detailed eligibility criteria and participant selection information is a result of the use of pre-existing data, which was collected with its own criteria and protocols. Thank you again for your relevant suggestion and comments. Reviewers’ Comments Sampling procedure and population: Do you believe that 'all living infants under 6 months of age' amounts to only 524 (based on the 2019 EMDHS)? If not, how was the sample of 524 infants selected? Please provide a clear description of the selection procedure. Authors’ Response: Dear reviewer, Thank you for your feedback. The 2019 Ethiopian Mini Demographic and Health Survey (EMDHS) initially included 618 infants under 6 months of age. For our study on MMF practices, we excluded infants who were not breastfeeding. This resulted in a final weighted sample of 524 infants who met the study criteria. We included this in the manuscript for further clarity of the sampling procedure. Reviewers’ Comments Data management and analysis: Please put the version of STATA. “We remove missing values from our analysis by using the STATA drop command in combination with a logical or conditional statement.” But you mentioned “Missing data were managed based on the DHS guideline” under the data source section. How do you relate those two sentences? Do you believe that “Removing” is considered as the management of missing data analysis? If not, manage your missing data based on imputation or other handling methods. Authors’ Response: Dear reviewer, Thank you for your valuable comments. We have now included the version of STATA we used for the data analysis. We apologize for any confusion caused by our previous statement regarding missing data management. We adhered to the DHS guidelines, which led us to remove a small number of missing data points. These cases were minimal and did not impact the results, as allowed by the guidelines. Reviewers’ Comments Please thoroughly document all methods under the 'Spatial Scan Statistics' and 'Spatial Regression' sections, including relevant supporting references. Authors’ Response: Dear reviewer, Thank you for your valuable feedback. We have thoroughly documented all methods under the 'Spatial Scan Statistics' and 'Spatial Regression' sections in the revised manuscript. This includes a comprehensive description of the spatial scan statistics and the spatial regression techniques applied in our study with relevant supporting references. We appreciate your time and consideration, and we trust the revisions meet your expectations. Reviewers’ Comments Please format the table title clearly (e.g., 'Problem, Population, Area, 2024, n=') and ensure the tables are cited throughout the document with cross-references. Authors’ Response: Dear reviewer, Thank you for your comment. We have corrected the table title accordingly and the revised table title is as follows: “Sociodemographic Characteristics of Mixed Milk Feeding Practices Among Infants Aged 0–5 Months in Ethiopia, EDHS 2019 (n = 524)” Thank you again for your valuable feedback. Reviewers’ Comments Prevalence of mixed milk feeding in Ethiopia: “In this study, the overall prevalence of MMF was 10.12% (95% CI 7.8, 13.01), with regional variations observed across Ethiopia”. The results were not displayed in any tables or graphs. Please provide the prevalence data in either a table or a graph, and reference any tables used. Authors’ Response: Dear reviewer, Thank you for your valuable suggestion. We have included a graph illustrating the prevalence of MMF across regions of Ethiopia. We believe this graph will enhance the manuscript. Reviewers’ Comments The 'Discussion' section can be generally divided into 3 separate paragraphs: 1) Introductory paragraph/rationale of the study, 2) Intermediate paragraphs/compare and contrast with the most recent and relevant literature, 3) Concluding paragraph/indicating future directions. Then address such things as well. Authors’ Response: Dear reviewer, Thank you for your suggestions on structuring the discussion. We have divided it into an introduction, a comparison of findings, and a conclusion with future directions. We used multiple paragraphs for the comparison due to the need for detailed explanation. Thank you again for your valuable feedback. Reviewers’ Comments While the manuscript mentions the study utilized nationally representative data as a strength indicating there is adequate power to detect the true effect of exposures. However, it does not provide a power calculation to support this claim. Authors’ Response: Dear reviewer, Thank you for your feedback. We did not conduct a formal power calculation for this study. Instead, we relied on the available sample, which is representative and uses complex survey design techniques to ensure robustness. Thank you Agin for your valuable feedback. Reviewers’ Comments Recommendation This comprehensive report outlines the issues identified throughout the manuscript, with specific sections and requires substantial minor revisions to address these concerns and enhance the clarity, relevance, and presentation of results. After making the necessary minor revisions with re-write of manuscript, a re-evaluation is recommended for considering publication. Authors’ response Dear reviewer , Thank you for your reccomendation and the overall expertise feedback. We hope all the comments are addressed and we are very open to accept any additional comment and suggestions. Thank you for your helpful comments, suggestions, and feedback for enhancing the manuscript. We are open to any further suggestions and look forward to incorporating them to improve our work. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: CC. BY 4.0.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0317089.r003
22 Dec 2024 Decision Letter - Daniel Bekalo, Editor Spatial distribution of mixed milk feeding and its determinants among mothers of infants aged under 6 months in Ethiopia: spatial and geographical weighted regression analysis. PONE-D-24-28246R1 Dear Dr. Aweke, 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, Daniel Biftu Bekalo, PhD 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 ******** 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 ****** 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: (No Response) ****** 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 ******** Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: comment.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0317089.r004
Formally Accepted
Acceptance Letter - Daniel Bekalo, Editor PONE-D-24-28246R1 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Aweke, 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. Daniel Biftu Bekalo Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0317089.r005

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