PONE-D-24-44660 Association between the Body Roundness Index and osteoarthritis: a population-based study PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

Based on comments of reviewers, I recommond this manuscript minor revision.

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Reviewers' comments:

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Comments to the Author

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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

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

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?

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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: The authors performed population-based study to assess the Association between the Body Roundness Index and osteoarthritis. This study is interesting since it enlightens the general public about a new indicator of osteoarthritis. The study adapted a well-validated questionnaire and conducted the study in a planned manner with most parts well written. However, such as the use of ROC that yielded low diagnostic accuracies. I have a few comments to be addressed by the authors. If these comments are substantially addressed, I recommend publication of this manuscript.

Major Comments:

Abstract:

1. Line 11: “Obesity is closely linked to osteoarthritis (OA)” Kindly have opening sentence that show how Obesity is linked to OA.

2. Your ROC analysis had low performance and shouldn’t be emphasized here in abstract. You should ignore the fact that it can severe as a diagnostic indicator. ROC values less than 0.7 indicates that a variable is weak in prediction.

Introduction:

3. Kindly adopt the PLOS ONE referencing style.

Materials and Methods:

4. Authors should clearly state the study design.

Results:

1. Since Osteoarthritis is a main outcome of the study, kindly put the prevalence in a table.

2. Your ROC analysis had low performance and shouldn’t be emphasized here in the manuscript. Based on the AUC values close to 0.5/0.6, these parameters are guessers and cannot serve as good indicators of OA.

Discussions:

1. Well-written.

Reviewer #2: Very good paper with comprehensive information. However is it right to just ask the patient about arthritis, heart disease, or diabetes? I think that it may have more reliable way to confirm their OA or ...

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Stephen Opoku

Reviewer #2: Yes: Laleh Abadi marand

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Association between the Body Roundness Index and osteoarthritis: a population-based study

PONE-D-24-44660R1

Dear Dr. Yao,

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,

Li-Da Wu

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

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

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: 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

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

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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: All my comments were appropriately addressed, however, I mistakenly said a table instead of a figure in the below comment, which I believe the authors should readdress

Results:1. Since Osteoarthritis is a main outcome of the study, kindly put the prevalence in a table.

Although the authors added this to table 1 based on my comment (table), it should be a figure. Just have a figure (bar graph) showing the percentage of OA and non-OA, so it is easy for readers to capture your main outcome.

since OA-yes is the same as OA and OA-no is the same as non-OA. I am happy with the remaining repose and do not need to reassess this manuscript again.

Reviewer #2: Thank you for your complete responses to all items. all comments have been addressed and if the other reviewers have accepted the responses, it is ready to publish.

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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.

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: Stephen Opoku

Reviewer #2: No

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