PONE-D-24-30536Usual prevention in unusual settings: A scoping review of place-based health interventions in public-facing businessesPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Tsai,

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.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Lakshminarayana Chekuri, MD, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

Thank you for your scholarly contribution. I'd also like to thank the authors for choosing PLOS ONE to publish your findings from this study. Comments from reviewers are provided below. Please review these comments and I suggest address them and resubmit your manuscript. Your timely response would help this study be published and accessible to interested readers across the world. I look forward to reviewing your revised manuscript. I wish you good luck with your future endeavors.

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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: Partly

Reviewer #2: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: N/A

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: Yes

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: This article presents a scoping review of peer reviewed articles on the broad topic of place-based health interventions. They present the findings by health issue of 43 peer reviewed articles and provide information on geographic location, sample population and size, and main findings. They found that barber shops and beauty salons were common facilities for cardiovascular disease and cancer interventions (i.e., screenings, referrals, and education), particularly in populations that were African American or Black.

I see a couple of major concerns about the synthesis of the findings and a need for transparency of the methods to determine rigor. These concerns prevent me from endorsing its acceptance in its present state.

The study fails to clarify how this scoping review builds upon a recent umbrella review by McGowan et al (2021). In addition, this article’s main finding of use of barbershops and beauty salons for public health outreach, research, and health intervention in racial and ethnic minority populations is already well established. For example, W. Kong and E. Saunders published in this context about hypertension in 1989. Additional synthesis of data by health issue, geographic region, strength of evidence, etc. would be helpful to the reader. For example, an evidence map may be relevant.

I have concerns about the level of sufficient detail to determine whether the scoping review was performed with rigor. Increased transparency in the methods is essential. The authors are off to a good start by using the PRISMA checklist for reporting. However, several key areas are not included or are included with insufficient detail. There was only one reviewer and yet no information about attempts to reduce bias. They should thoroughly address failure to implement best practices from Mak and Thomas (2022). For example, the review protocol should be registered and the management software named. They should describe methods used to synthesize results. They should describe the process of extraction, calibration, stakeholder consultation, and beyond. The lack of assessment on risk of bias or analysis of strength of evidence should be explored as described in the PRISMA checklist.

As part of the discussion, in exploring these findings, the unintended consequences (ie. stigma) should be noted in conducting any health intervention in a public space. Experience with community advisory boards helps tailor interventions with cultural competence. In addition, greater discussion of the limitations and gaps is needed.

Specific minor feedback for consideration is included below:

• Figure 1 is very challenging to read despite zooming in. Make the text larger and increase the quality of the image. Additional details to clarify the process should be included.

• “Black” should be capitalized consistently throughout when referring to groups in racial, cultural, or ethnic terms.

• Justification is needed on why only peer reviewed articles were included and what impact that could have on the findings.

• The full syntax of keywords and strategies used in the initial searches should be available as supplemental materials, not available upon request from the authors.

References:

Mak S, Thomas A. Steps for Conducting a Scoping Review. J Grad Med Educ. 2022 Oct;14(5):565-567.

McGowan, V.J., Buckner, S., Mead, R. et al. Examining the effectiveness of place-based interventions to improve public health and reduce health inequalities: an umbrella review. BMC Public Health 21, 1888 (2021).

Kong W., Saunders E. (1989). Community programs to increase hypertension control. Journal of the National Medical Association, 81, 13–16.

Reviewer #2: Comments to Authors

Overall Feedback

The manuscript presents an important review on the use of non-traditional business settings for health interventions, which is both timely and relevant. I believe that addressing the structural and methodological concerns will significantly strengthen the manuscript.

Abstract

• Please provide a clearly defined and focused objective. The current version is too broad, making it difficult for the reader to gauge the expectations and scope of the review. I recommend using the objective stated in the Introduction for consistency and clarity.

• Additionally, a clarification is needed for the statement: “While there have been 9 randomized trials conducted across health conditions, they have been limited to a few select settings with little measurement of objective health outcomes indicating a need for more rigorously designed studies.” It is unclear whether the concern is the limited rigor of the randomized trials or their restriction to select settings with inadequate focus on objective health outcomes. I will suggest that authors address this ambiguity for a clearer interpretation.

Introduction

The introduction is well-structured but could be improved further.

• The statement, “However, these interventions were mostly focused on altering the ‘place’ of people as the intervention rather than focusing on delivering usual interventions in unusual places or settings,” requires expansion. It is not immediately apparent why altering the "place" of people is less favorable compared to delivering interventions in unconventional settings. Further explanation of these approaches and their respective merits or shortcomings would add depth to the argument.

• The example cited “For example, there have been a number of studies that have developed health promotion interventions in salons and barbershops to reach African American communities and a systematic review has summarized this research [3]” is a good one, but it feels disconnected from the preceding sentences. I will suggest re-writing the paragraph to provide a more coherent narrative, clearly linking examples to the argument.

• There is also a lack of an explicit explanation of how this review fills a gap in the literature. Currently, the significance of focusing on "unusual business settings" for health interventions is not adequately emphasized. Further explanation on why these settings are essential for addressing health disparities or improving outreach would strenghten the introduction. The objective should also address the "so what?" question to clarify the overall goal of the review.

Methods

There are some concerns in this section that need to be addressed.

• First, the manuscript states that "four major search databases were used: PubMed, Google Scholar, and APA PsycNet," but this lists only three databases.

• Also, the rationale behind limiting the search to studies from 1995-2023 is not provided. An explanation for this temporal restriction is needed to justify its relevance to the review.

• The search syntax appears overly simplistic. I recommend following established search strategies from previous reviews, such as those by McGowan et al. (2021) and Palmer et al. (2021), which may provide more robust search terms. In addition, the search seems to focus exclusively on barbershops, laundromats, hair salons, movie theaters, and nail salons, but there is no explanation for excluding other business settings that might serve as intervention sites. Expanding this scope, or at least justifying the exclusion of other settings, would improve the comprehensiveness of the review.

• It is best practice to include both inclusion and exclusion criteria explicitly, which are missing in this section. Additionally, since the review appears to be conducted by a single author, this raises concerns about potential bias. I recommend that co-authors participate in the data extraction process and that at least two reviewers are involved to verify extracted data and ensure consistency, which will strengthen the rigor of the review.

Results

• The current organization of the results does not align well with the review’s objectives. I recommend thematizing the findings based on the various types of preventive health interventions rather than organizing them by health conditions. This would allow for a more structured discussion of intervention methods, such as screenings for hypertension, HIV, or diabetes, while also categorizing them into primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention levels.

• For these sentences, “Table 1 contained studies providing interventions for cardiovascular health conditions, HIV, and diabetes. Table 2 contained studies providing interventions for different cancers, and Table 3 contained studies providing interventions for all other conditions not falling.”, Please cite the studies that belong to each of these categories. For instance, when discussing cardiovascular interventions, specific studies should be cited for clarity.

• The sentence, "These studies included screening programs, cross-sectional studies, longitudinal studies, descriptive studies, feasibility studies, a randomized controlled trial, pilot studies, cohort studies, and program evaluations," seems unclear in its inclusion of screening programs. Is there a specific reason screening programs are listed alongside study designs? Clarifying this distinction would improve clarity.

• Including more commentary on intervention outcomes, particularly which intervention methods were most effective, would add depth to the analysis.

• Adding more commentary on intervention outcomes, particularly on which methods were the most effective, would enrich the analysis and provide readers with a clearer sense of the practical impact of these interventions.

• More detail on the effectiveness of the interventions is needed, especially in terms of measurable health outcomes. For instance, while the review notes positive participant responses, including data on health improvements or behavior changes (e.g., increases in screenings or follow-up rates) would strengthen the results section.

• The tables are well-structured, but adding a column that summarizes the limitations of each study—such as small sample sizes or the observational nature of some interventions—would be helpful, especially since the authors are interested in the rigor of study designs.

Discussion

• The discussion section should demonstrate stronger alignment with the review's objective. For instance, the statement "we reviewed 43 studies of place-based health interventions" should clearly connect to the objective, which is to assess interventions delivered in non-traditional settings.

• “Additionally, the specific health condition with the greatest number of rigorous research designs (e.g. randomized controlled trials, cluster randomized trials) was for hypertension (3 studies).” I do not agree with this statement. The claim that randomized controlled trials are more rigorous than other study designs is problematic. The rigor of a study design depends on its alignment with the research question. Cross-sectional studies can be as rigorous as randomized controlled trials if they are appropriately suited to the research aims.

• “Further study is needed to expand beyond these settings to determine whether other public-facing business settings (e.g., grocery stores, banks, movie theatres, malls) are also effective and acceptable places for health interventions.” Did any of the reviewed studies focus on these settings or is there a reason why authors did not review articles from these settings?

• The sentence, "Although we counted 7 randomized trials, including several cluster randomized trials, they offered different types of interventions and targeted different health conditions, making synthesis challenging," is unclear. Could the authors clarify whether they attempted to synthesize information from these studies? If not, what approach did they take to handle these trials?

• "Many of these trials appeared to have design flaws, potentially compromising internal validity due to factors such as confounding variables, inadequate sample sizes, limited follow-up, or differential attrition between groups." Since the authors are concerned with study design rigor, it would be beneficial to evaluate the quality of each trial using established guidelines.

• The statement "Almost all studies relied on subjective outcome measures and did not measure..." is incomplete and not discussed in the results section. The authors should include this in the results if it is an important observation.

• Given the range of studies, we are also limited in specificity in drawing conclusions” Authors should please clarify what this statement means.

• "We only included studies from the United States, but there may be innovative place-based interventions in other countries" requires justification in the introduction. Why was the focus restricted to U.S.-based studies?

• While the review highlights innovative methods for reaching underserved populations in barbershops and beauty salons, the current structure of the results may not fully support this claim. Reorganizing the results by types of place-based health intervention first, followed by specific interventions, and then health conditions, would provide a clearer framework for discussion.

• A more detailed exploration of the barriers encountered in implementing health interventions in these settings should be included in the discussion. Challenges related to business owners’ willingness to participate, or logistical issues should be addressed.

• Expanding the discussion to include policy implications for promoting place-based health interventions, particularly in underserved communities, would add valuable context to the findings.

• Additionally, reflecting on how the review's findings could guide future research on health disparities would strengthen the overall contribution of the paper.

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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: No

Reviewer #2: No

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PONE-D-24-30536R1Usual prevention in unusual settings: A scoping review of place-based health interventions in public-facing businessesPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Tsai,

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 Jan 30 2025 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.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Lakshminarayana Chekuri, MD, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

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.

Additional Editor Comments :

Please review attached document for my suggestions.

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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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: 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

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #2: N/A

**********

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

Reviewer #2: 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

Reviewer #2: 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: I appreciate the numerous changes made by the authors to address the reviewers’ concerns. These improved the transparency in the rigor of the methods.

My previous concern, as well as that noted by Reviewer #2, was partially addressed; how does this review build upon the existing literature (i.e. McGowan et al 2021)? As previously noted, this article’s main finding of use of barbershops and beauty salons for public health outreach, research, and health intervention in racial and ethnic minority populations is already well-established. The author's clarified that organizing their findings by health issue adds value to the field as it synthesizes the evidence and quality to plan for future research and intervention.

Please clarify the revisions the authors’ noted on page 2 as they present two unclear and conflicting sentences (below).

“For example, there have been a number of studies that have developed health promotion interventions in salons and barbershops to reach African American communities, with a systematic review summarizing this research [3]. However, these studies have primarily focused on settings traditionally associated with community health outreach, such as grocery stores, pharmacies, and similar venues.”

Reviewer #2: The authors have done a great job addressing the concerns I raised in the first round of review. I have no additional comments. Well done.

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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.

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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

Reviewer #2: No

**********

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Editor comments 12-15-24.docx

PONE-D-24-30536R2Usual prevention in unusual settings: A scoping review of place-based health interventions in public-facing businessesPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Tsai,

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 Feb 10 2025 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.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Lakshminarayana Chekuri, MD, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

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.

Additional Editor Comments:

Please review my comments in attached document.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

[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: Academic Editor comments 12-26-24.docx

Usual prevention in unusual settings: A scoping review of place-based health interventions in public-facing businesses

PONE-D-24-30536R3

Dear Dr. Tsai,

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,

Lakshminarayana Chekuri, MD, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: