Preventing depression in high-income countries—A systematic review of studies evaluating change in social determinants

Mary Nicolaou; Laura S. Shields-Zeeman; Junus M. van der Wal; Karien Stronks

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0323378

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionAugust 1, 2023
1 Aug 2023 Author Response https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0323378.r001
12 Feb 2024 Decision Letter - Mohammad Ebrahimi, Editor PONE-D-23-23924Preventing depression in high-income countries – a systematic review of studies evaluating change in social determinantsPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Nicolaou, 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 Mar 28 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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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: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: N/A Reviewer #3: N/A ****** 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 ****** 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 ****** 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: in my opinion, the article was complete and comprehensive in every respect, ethical and scientific issues were observed. Experiments have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously. Reviewer #2: The manuscript undertakes systematic review on a very pertinent topic highlighting whether changes in social determinants can prevent depression and its symptoms in high income countries. Some points can be worked upon for improvimg the overall rigour and quality of the study. 1. The authors have used the word 'sex" throughout the manuscript. The word 'sex' is a biological term, and it is therefore suggested that given the context of the manuscript, the word 'gender' is more suitable as it has social connotations. 2. The MeSH (Medical subject headings) terms are missing in the manuscript. Please include it in the search strategy. 3. The discussion is very exhaustive and it can be shortened slightly to make the manuscript more crisp. Reviewer #3: Thank you for giving me the opportunty to review this manuscript. The aim of this review is to examine whether change in social determinants can result in depression prevention using a systematic review. Social determinants of health are essentially non-medical factors affecting health outcomes. Study characteristics were clearly and concisely summarized. The presentation of the results were structured into societal arrangements, material resources, and social resources, with sufficient details. Table 4 (Summary of Findings) is an essential table for readers to grasp a better understanding of the relationship between change in social determinants and depression. The following are the specific comments: 1. This study demonstrates a connection between social determinants and depression risk, highlighting several key factors that policymakers should take into account when developing policies or interventions to reduce population-level depression risk. While this review may not specifically address potential barriers or challenges in implementing such policies and interventions, such as political, economic, or logistical constraints, these factors are indeed crucial for policymakers to consider when making decisions. It may be worth discussing the potential barriers or challenges that could arise in implementing policies or interventions aimed at reducing depression risk. 2. Moreover it would be beneficial for policymakers to have information on the relative impact of these factors in reducing depression risk. This would enable them to prioritize policies and interventions, with the constraints of limited resources. 3. The review includes studies of various methodological rigor and quality (Validity Assessment scores ranging from 18 to 26). Although studies with a score of 18 or higher were considered to be of high quality, some with relatively lower score (eg 19) may indicate that the existence of potential biases or confounding factors in these studies, which could impact the strength and generalizability of the findings. Please explain how these scores be taken account in the discussion/conclusions. 4. This review does not provide specific details on the types of policies and interventions that may be effective in reducing population-level depression risk. This may limit the applicability of the findings for policymakers and practitioners seeking to implement evidence-based interventions. 5. The conclusion acknowledges the need for studies that consider different populations and conditions. This will be more useful to elaborate more on this point so that a specific guidance can be formulated on how to tailor interventions to different contexts or how to account for potential variations in effectiveness across settings. ****** 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: Yes: TANVI KIRAN Reviewer #3: Yes: LM Ho ******** [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. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0323378.r002
Revision 1
23 Apr 2024 Author Response Financial disclosure This study was funded by the Centre for Urban Mental Health, which is one of the research priority areas (RPA) of the University of Amsterdam. Specifically, the centre funded the salaries of MN (part-time) and JvdW (full-time). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Data availability All data are in the manuscript and/or supporting information files. Specifically, this paper is a review of existing studies and, as such, does not include any unique data, the references to the included articles are part of the manuscript. Supporting information We have adjusted the reference to supporting information in the text to reflect PlosOne guidelines and also include mention of the files at the end of the manuscript. Responses to reviewers comments We appreciate all three reviewers’ positive comments on our manuscript. Reviewer #1: in my opinion, the article was complete and comprehensive in every respect, ethical and scientific issues were observed. Experiments have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously. Thank you! Reviewer #2: The manuscript undertakes systematic review on a very pertinent topic highlighting whether changes in social determinants can prevent depression and its symptoms in high income countries. Some points can be worked upon for improving the overall rigour and quality of the study. We thank the reviewer for their positive evaluation of our review. 1. The authors have used the word 'sex" throughout the manuscript. The word 'sex' is a biological term, and it is therefore suggested that given the context of the manuscript, the word 'gender' is more suitable as it has social connotations. Adjusted as suggested. 2. The MeSH (Medical subject headings) terms are missing in the manuscript. Please include it in the search strategy. We have included the MeSH terms used in supplement 1 where the full search strategy is described. 3. The discussion is very exhaustive and it can be shortened slightly to make the manuscript more crisp. We have worked to shorten the discussion section by reducing some of the detail in the discussion. Additionally, we have considerably restructured the text, also in response to comments by reviewer 3. We hope that the reviewer finds the text to be less dense as a result. We refer to the text in lines 763-770; 804-859; 868-900; 1199-1224. Reviewer #3: Thank you for giving me the opportunty to review this manuscript. The aim of this review is to examine whether change in social determinants can result in depression prevention using a systematic review. Social determinants of health are essentially non-medical factors affecting health outcomes. Study characteristics were clearly and concisely summarized. The presentation of the results were structured into societal arrangements, material resources, and social resources, with sufficient details. Table 4 (Summary of Findings) is an essential table for readers to grasp a better understanding of the relationship between change in social determinants and depression. We thank the reviewer for her/his positive evaluation of our review. We have also checked table 4 to ensure that it accurately reflects the included papers. The following are the specific comments: 1. This study demonstrates a connection between social determinants and depression risk, highlighting several key factors that policymakers should take into account when developing policies or interventions to reduce population-level depression risk. While this review may not specifically address potential barriers or challenges in implementing such policies and interventions, such as political, economic, or logistical constraints, these factors are indeed crucial for policymakers to consider when making decisions. It may be worth discussing the potential barriers or challenges that could arise in implementing policies or interventions aimed at reducing depression risk. We thank the reviewer for this comment. Based on this we have more strongly highlighted the issue of unintended consequences of policies (lines 1203-1212) and have mentioned the importance of inter-sectoral collaboration in forming policy, using systems approaches (lines 1219-1225). We have also restructured the discussion to ensure that the implications for policy are condensed in one section so that they are more accessible to readers (lines 1199-1224). Beyond these changes, we have not elaborated on the barriers of challenges in implementing policies at this was beyond the aim of our review. To do so would require a different kind of approach than what we have taken. However, we do agree that this is an important issue to consider in future research and included the following comment in paragraph outlining the implications for research: In taking this approach it is important to include consideration of the role of political, economic, or logistical constraints in adoption of policy to address the social determinants of health. (lines 1184-1186) 2. Moreover it would be beneficial for policymakers to have information on the relative impact of these factors in reducing depression risk. This would enable them to prioritize policies and interventions, with the constraints of limited resources. If we understand this comment correctly, the reviewer is suggesting that we rank interventions according to their relative impact. Our findings highlight a number of interventions that have been consistently shown to reduce population risk of depression as well as policy actions with adverse effects. To emphasise these we have added the following text in the first paragraph of the discussion: We found most, consistent and high quality of evidence for changes in a number of social determinants, where a positive development led to a reduction on risk of depression 1) paid parental leave (8/10 studies) 2) gaining employment (9/10 studies); or, conversely, where a negative development led to increased risk of depression 1) reduction in income or transitioning into poverty (12 studies), 2) losing employment (14/17 studies), 3) work incentives coupled with reduction/loss of welfare ((8/12 studies), 4) collective insecurity (economic crisis) (14/18 studies), instability of housing (9 studies). (lines 764-770). However, we add that: The lack of clear-cut evidence on many of the other determinants included in this review was due to limited numbers of studies or methodological issues, thus we cannot conclude that they are not relevant for policy. (lines 1217-1219). Thus we also add: Overall, the broad spectrum of actions needed to address population-level depression risk implies there is a need for a comprehensive approach that involves collaboration between different policy domains. In addition, the complexity of addressing population mental health, given interactions between different determinants, differential effects across populations and unintended consequences implies careful consideration of the local context in developing policy, preferably using system dynamic approaches. (lines 1220-1225). 3. The review includes studies of various methodological rigor and quality (Validity Assessment scores ranging from 18 to 26). Although studies with a score of 18 or higher were considered to be of high quality, some with relatively lower score (eg 19) may indicate that the existence of potential biases or confounding factors in these studies, which could impact the strength and generalizability of the findings. Please explain how these scores be taken account in the discussion/conclusions. We have included an evaluation of the evidence base on the VA scores in describing our main findings in the summary of our findings and in other sections of the discussion. With regard to welfare reforms: The majority of studies on societal arrangements assessed the impact of welfare reforms. All of the studies can be considered high quality, i.e. >18 points on the Validity Assessment scale. Of those, five studies scored 19-20 points. (lines 779-781). In relation to (un)employment: Study quality was mixed, of the 28 studies related to employment, 11 scored less than 20 and of these five scored less than 18 points. Thus our findings regarding employment may be biased, although they were similar to those of previous reviews and meta-analyses [167, 168]. (Lines 309-312). Also: Studies at the neighbourhood level, including urban regeneration yielded mixed results which cannot be ascribed to low study quality; only one of the 11 studies scored <18 on the Quality Assessment scale. (lines 391-393) 4. This review does not provide specific details on the types of policies and interventions that may be effective in reducing population-level depression risk. This may limit the applicability of the findings for policymakers and practitioners seeking to implement evidence-based interventions. As mentioned in our response above, we have restructured the discussion section to bring the evidence for policy together to make our findings more accessible. In this paragraph we emphasize the findings for which there is greater evidence but the goal of this review was not to rank policies, but to present evidence on policies which might have an effect on mental health. However, we also highlight the importance of considering local context and unintended consequences. For example, having paid parental leave has an impact on mental health of the family members and may also contribute to better mental health outcomes of the children later in life, but how that paid parental leave is embedded into policy measures (or combined) with other policies may be country specific. See also our response above. 5. The conclusion acknowledges the need for studies that consider different populations and conditions. This will be more useful to elaborate more on this point so that a specific guidance can be formulated on how to tailor interventions to different contexts or how to account for potential variations in effectiveness across settings. We appreciate this comment, the relevance of context and potential unintended consequences is clear. We hope that the adjustments made in our manuscript are sufficient to meet the suggestions of the reviewer. Importantly, we want to emphasise that a comprehensive analysis on how to tailor interventions is beyond the scope of this review. We do suggest that further research, using systems and/or realist approaches might provide more specific insights for tailoring to context and population. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0323378.r003
24 Jun 2024 Decision Letter - De-Chih Lee, Editor PONE-D-23-23924R1 Preventing depression in high-income countries – a systematic review of studies evaluating change in social determinants PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Nicolaou, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we have decided that your manuscript does not meet our criteria for publication and must therefore be rejected. Specifically: I am sorry that we cannot be more positive on this occasion, but hope that you appreciate the reasons for this decision. Kind regards, De-Chih Lee, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments: There are some problems with this manuscript. 1. First, this manuscript only searches three journal databases, which may miss important information or references. 2. The literature included by the author consists of quantitative and qualitative research. The author conducts the discussion using a qualitative method. Using qualitative research methods to perform a quantitative literature review will miss much information and is unscientific and unobjective. 3. The author excludes patients with diabetes and heart disease. What about other illnesses such as cancer, mental disorders, etc.? What is the basis for the exclusion? 4. The authors exclude low-income and middle-income countries. Are these countries not providing social support? For example, China. When these countries are excluded, the conclusions of this manuscript will be biased. 5. In the abstract, the authors find evidence that strategies such as promoting paid employment and parental leave can reduce the risk of depression. What is the author's evidence? Is it through statistical analysis? I haven't seen any system evidence of this. Finally, using qualitative methods for the literature review of quantitative studies was permissible in the past when tools were not available. However, many software tools are now available to assist researchers in conducting more objective and scientific analyses. In particular, this manuscript includes many references, most of which are quantitative. Using traditional manual methods to organize and summarise would have missed much important information and would not have been objective. In addition, the literature search and the inclusion criteria make this manuscript subject to serious bias and will miss important information or literature. It is recommended that the authors expand the literature search and adopt a quantitative method. Authors may include too wide a range of variables for quantitative methods can not be used. Authors are advised to focus on the research topic and expand the search of journal databases. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] 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 Reviewer #3: 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 Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #3: 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 #3: 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 Reviewer #3: 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: in my opinion, the article was complete and comprehensive in every respect, ethical and scientific issues were observed. It would be better if the Cochrane site was also used in the search Reviewer #3: Thank you for giving me the opportunty to review this manuscript again. This is a resubmission, and has significant improvements. It is particularly helpful to include a section on Determinants with limited evidence, as this enables readers to effectively summarize and appraise the presented evidence in this review. The authors have adequately addressed the concerns and comments that were previously raised by reviewers. ****** 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: Yes: Fariba Zare Reviewer #3: Yes: LM Ho ******** [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.] - - - - - For journal use only: PONEDEC3 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0323378.r004
Revision 2
26 Jul 2024 Author Response RE manuscript PONE-D-23-23924R1 Preventing depression in high-income countries – a systematic review of studies evaluating change in social determinants Dear editorial team, Thank you for allowing is to resubmit our manuscript “Preventing depression in high-income countries – a systematic review of studies evaluating change in social determinants”. As you are aware, this manuscript was recently rejected but is now being resubmitted after appeal. We would first like to summarise the facts. Initial submission was in July 2023 but took some time to be assigned to an editor. We received notification of the difficulties in assigning an editor on the 30th of October and then notification in November that an editor had been assigned. Reviewer comments were provided in February 2024, recommending revision of the manuscript, which we completed at the end of March. In June we received notification that the manuscript was again delayed due to changes in editors. Finally, on the 25th of June we received a rejection letter from the editor newly assigned to our paper. The new editor names a number of reasons for rejection of our paper. However we would argue that some of the issues mentioned do not align for the overall aim and rationale for our review. Below we provide a response (in italics) to the comments made by the editor. a) First, this manuscript only searches three journal databases, which may miss important information or references. Three to four databases for systematic reviews are widely accepted in publications, also in other systematic reviews published in PLOS One. I can appreciate that 4-5 databases is more common in 2024 (also considering Google Scholar as a common database). If this was an issue it should have been flagged up in the first or second review of the article, when the authors could have chosen to search an additional database or take the review for consideration elsewhere. We discuss this in the paper and our strategy to overcome this shortcoming (page 83): “We conducted our search in three major databases (Medline, Embase and Psychinfo) so some relevant papers may have been missed. To compensate, we conducted a thorough search of the reference lists of included studies and published reviews” b) The literature included by the author consists of quantitative and qualitative research. The author conducts the discussion using a qualitative method. Using qualitative research methods to perform a quantitative literature review will miss much information and is unscientific and unobjective. Firstly, we only include quantitative research in our search, so this is a mistaken impression. Secondly, our use of a narrative review is justified by the broad range of topics studied. Our aim was to provide a broad overview of the topic, including many determinants. A meta-analysis was not possible given the design of our review. Narrative descriptions of evidence is not unscientific or unobjective, and we also rated the quality of the evidence included in the review, which is systematic and more objective. c) The author excludes patients with diabetes and heart disease. What about other illnesses such as cancer, mental disorders, etc.? What is the basis for the exclusion? As explained on page 8 of the manuscript, we excluded studies in specific clinical populations or all patient groups, of which persons with diabetes, heart disease are an example. Our aim is to give an overview of strategies that could be employed to prevent depression in the general population. We justify our exclusion of patient groups as the social determinants underlying depression risks in patients differ from these in de general population. d) The authors exclude low-income and middle-income countries. Are these countries not providing social support? For example, China. When these countries are excluded, the conclusions of this manuscript will be biased. We aimed to develop an overview of potential policies and intervention that act on social determinants of mental health relevant for high-income country contexts, and we acknowledge that we may have missed specific mechanisms at play in low and middle-income countries (page 83). However, the focus on high-income countries was based on the expectation that differences in context would have an influence on the relationship between social determinants and mental health. This does not imply that social determinants are not relevant for low and middle income countries, as the editor suggests. Understanding the relation between social determinants and mental health in those settings simply goes beyond the aim of this specific paper. To further expand on this point in the manuscript we expanded somewhat on this point in the discussion, lines 874-880 where we added the text: “Excluding low and middle-income countries in our search means that we might have missed capturing the mechanisms underlying the association between these determinants and depression. However, the influence of the social determinants can be very context-specific. For example, the level of economic development is likely to influence the impact of such interventions, especially progressive policies like parental leave, although there is likely to be variation in contextual factors between high-income countries as well”. If this was an issue it should have been brought up in previous revisions of the systematic review, not already more than a year after in the review process of PLOS one. e) In the abstract, the authors find evidence that strategies such as promoting paid employment and parental leave can reduce the risk of depression. What is the author's evidence? Is it through statistical analysis? I haven't seen any system evidence of this. The evidence is in the included studies in our review showing this, but also here: How do income changes impact on mental health and wellbeing for working-age adults? A systematic review and meta-analysis (thelancet.com) and here: National or population level interventions addressing the social determinants of mental health – an umbrella review \| BMC Public Health \| Full Text (biomedcentral.com). This is not an opinion of the authors, but of the evidence synthesized in this review. The aim of a narrative systematic review is not do a statistical analysis. Our analysis is based on a rigorous evaluation of the evidence, which have been judged as ‘sound’ by the reviewers. In addition, it is not clear to us what the editor means with ‘any system evidence’? f) Finally, using qualitative methods for the literature review of quantitative studies was permissible in the past when tools were not available. However, many software tools are now available to assist researchers in conducting more objective and scientific analyses. In particular, this manuscript includes many references, most of which are quantitative. Using traditional manual methods to organize and summarise would have missed much important information and would not have been objective. We are of course aware of the availability of software tools to quantitatively summarize the results of multiple studies in a systematic review. However, the aim of our paper was NOT to quantitatively assess the strength of the association. Instead, the rationale of our study was to assess evidence for a causal relationship between social determinants and depression. As explained in line 81 and further: However, in existing studies it is often not clear whether a change in exposure to social determinants will also lead to a lower risk of depression. Establishing causality is fraught with difficulty and the increased application of counterfactual methodologies to this field has helped to clarify causality. For this reason, the quantitative assessment as suggested by the editor goes beyond the aim of our paper. g) In addition, the literature search and the inclusion criteria make this manuscript subject to serious bias and will miss important information or literature. It is recommended that the authors expand the literature search and adopt a quantitative method. Authors may include too wide a range of variables for quantitative methods can not be used. Authors are advised to focus on the research topic and expand the search of journal databases. As explained in our previous reactions, this would entail a completely new approach, with a different research question. We would like to point out that the views of the two reviewers that evaluated our (revised) manuscript were satisfied with the adjustments made. On initial evaluation of our manuscript one of the reviewers comments “The manuscript undertakes systematic review on a very pertinent topic highlighting whether changes in social determinants can prevent depression and its symptoms in high income countries”. Critical comments were made by both reviewers which we had responded to. Both reviewers answered gave a positive response to the question “is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?” We look forward to further consideration of this work. With kind regards, Mary Nicolaou, on behalf of the co-authors https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0323378.r005
8 Apr 2025 Decision Letter - katsuya oi, Editor Preventing depression in high-income countries – a systematic review of studies evaluating change in social determinants PONE-D-23-23924R2 Dear Dr. Nicolaou, 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. I was informed of the situation surrounding your submission. I am pleased with the editorial team's judicious decision to grant and accept your appeal. Upon my close reading, I find this manuscript to be of great value. As you pointed out, there is not much review out there that focuses specifically on changes in exposure to social determinants. I acknowledge the authors' extraordinary efforts to provide future researchers with critical pointers to exploit pseudo experimental settings due to policy changes so comprehensively. The delay is indeed regrettable, but I would like to offer a strong endorsement that this accomplished literature review is very much still relevant to ongoing research as of 2025. 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. With respect, Katsuya oi, PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0323378.r006
Formally Accepted
Acceptance Letter - katsuya oi, Editor PONE-D-23-23924R2 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Nicolaou, 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 You will receive further instructions from the production team, including instructions on how to review your proof when it is ready. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few days 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. katsuya oi Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0323378.r007

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