Peer Review History

Original SubmissionFebruary 10, 2025
Decision Letter - Jason Morgan, Editor

-->PONE-D-25-06968-->-->Assessing the relationship between Male Alcohol consumption and Intimate Partner Violence against Women in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Dual Dataset Analysis-->-->PLOS ONE

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-->Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: No

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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-->5. Review Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: Assessing the relationship between Male Alcohol consumption and Intimate Partner Violence against Women in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Dual Dataset AnalysisAssessing the relationship between Male Alcohol consumption and Intimate Partner Violence against Women in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Dual Dataset AnalysisAssessing the relationship between Male Alcohol consumption and Intimate Partner Violence against Women in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Dual Dataset AnalysisAssessing the relationship between Male Alcohol consumption and Intimate Partner Violence against Women in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Dual Dataset Analysis

This paper addresses an important global issue concerning women. Overall, the paper is well written. Check and correct syntactical errors,

Do not use contractions (see page 10 - didn’t) in a professional paper.

Methodology:

- Data analysis

The sampling procedure requires special procedure called weighted complex sampling. This is important for the estimation of appropriate standard errors because of nested sampling. Why were the authors did not conduct complex sampling weighted analysis?

The study outcomes sexual/physical/emotional and pooled IPV are all binary(proportions)

For regression analysis, I would expect them to conduct logistic regression, not linear models which are used if the outcome variable is a continuous variable. Please clarify.

Need details on the process on how the variables were entered. Were they entered all at once or used stepwise regression option?

- Variables

Although the authors provided the reference, they should provide details on how pooled IPV and pooled alcohol consumption were computed. Did they add all 5 countries and take the average?

Multiple regression model:

How did the authors choose which variables to include in the model? Is it based on the bivariate associations presented in Table 2? Please include degrees of freedom and p-value for each crosstabulation. This is important for the reader to see these values. Or use asterisks to indicate the level of significance. *p<.05; ** p=< .01; *** p<.001

Use variables that have a significant association with IPV at the bi-variate level.

There are some independent variables in the model that might be highly associated (multicollinearity). For example, women afraid of husband and partners controlling behavior; working status and wealth index; Country and districts , etc.

Women might be afraid because of husband’s controlling behavior. It has a direct effect.

Check for multicollinearity.

Results/

Second paragraph… Begin with “Table 2 presents bivariate associations between study variables and the outcome.”

Discussion-

The question on IPV asks about violence experienced since the age of 15 years. It is possible that they might not have experienced violence with the current husband. So, it is likely that they might be reporting incidents occurred with their prior partners/boyfriends or their experiences with other family members (incest).

We cannot establish a direct link to IPV and the prevalence of alcohol consumption of the current partner.

We cannot establish a direct link unless the partner was under the influence when the IPV event occurred. So, the authors need to be careful in claiming direct causation between alcohol and committing violence.

Please indicate this fact under limitations.

Please do not repeat the numbers that are already presented in the tables.

Need to add study limitations section and how they might influence the study findings.

Please include your study implications as you see fit for Sub Sahara African region.

Tables:

Include sample size (N) for all the tables and subgroups.

Table 1: delete % symbol next to each number. Put a note at the bottom of the table saying Note: The prevalence is presented in percentage along with 95% confidence intervals in the parenthesis.

Table 2 : please include degrees of freedom and p-value for each crosstabulation. Or use asterisks to indicate the significance level and add a note at the bottom of the table.

This is important for the reader to see the bivariate association between the study variables and the outcome types of IPV.

Table 3:

CI values are missing for education under emotional IPV.

Table 3 title needs to be changed to reflect what is presented.

“Results from multivariable regression predicting odds of IPV” do not use the term “correlation” correlation is a statistical term measuring association between two continuous variables.

Note at the bottom:

Note: Adjusted odds ratios and 95% Confidence Intervals are presented in parenthesis.

Add a note at the bottom of the table for the asterisks to indicate the significance level.

*p<.05; ** p=< .01; *** p<.001

**********

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Suhasini Ramisetty MiklerSuhasini Ramisetty MiklerSuhasini Ramisetty MiklerSuhasini Ramisetty Mikler

**********

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Revision 1

Point-by-point response to the reviewer

Dear Dr. Mikler,

Thank you for your insightful and valuable feedback, which has greatly strengthened our article. We have revised the manuscript accordingly and would appreciate your review of the updated document.

1.Data analysis

The sampling procedure requires special procedure called weighted complex sampling. This is important for the estimation of appropriate standard errors because of nested sampling. Why were the authors did not conduct complex sampling weighted analysis?

Response: Thank you for your important question. This approach has been addressed in the analysis, and the results are presented in the results section. We have also clarified this further in the manuscript. Specifically, we included the following statement:

"The data were weighted to ensure representativeness and to provide more accurate statistical estimates. We accounted for the complex survey design features of the DHS—namely sampling weights, clustering, and stratification—in all our analyses to ensure that the effect estimates were unbiased and representative at both national and sub-regional levels. In the pooled analyses, we applied de-normalized sampling weights based on each country’s population size and additionally adjusted for country and survey year fixed effects to control for unobserved country-specific factors and temporal trends”.

2.The study outcomes sexual/physical/emotional and pooled IPV are all binary(proportions)

For regression analysis, I would expect them to conduct logistic regression, not linear models which are used if the outcome variable is a continuous variable. Please clarify.

Response: This isa great point. However, the traditional logistic regression model from a cross-sectional study may overestimate the relative risk when the outcome is common and in case of convergence issues modified Poisson regression model performs better in estimating the prevalence ratio. the description is included in the methodology section with references.

“We used the modified Poisson regression models with robust error variance and reported the results as an adjusted prevalence ratio with a 95% confidence interval. This model modified the Posson regression model since the odds ratio estimated using the traditional logistic regression from a cross-sectional study may overestimate the relative risk when the outcome is common [1, 2] and in case of convergence issues this model performs better in estimating the prevalence ratio [3, 4]”.

3.Need details on the process on how the variables were entered. Were they entered all at once or used stepwise regression option?

Response: we used the modified poisson regression model and hence we entered all variables simultaneously.

- Variables

4.Although the authors provided the reference, they should provide details on how pooled IPV and pooled alcohol consumption were computed. Did they add all 5 countries and take the average?

Response: thank you for your valuable comment. We have modified this section in the methodology part.

The IPV is defined as women who had experienced at least one event of physical, emotional or sexual violence since the age of 15 years [5-7].

Table 1: The tool used to measure IPV in the Demographic and Health Surveys.

Question/item IPV type

Push you, shake you, or throw something at you? physical IPV

Slap you?

Twist your arm or pull your hair

Punch you with his/her first or with something that could hurt you?

Kick you, drag you, or beat you up?

Try to choke you or burn you on purpose?

Threaten or attack you with a knife, gun or any other weapon?

Physically force you to have sexual intercourse with him even when you did not want to? Sexual IPV

Physically force you to perform any other sexual acts you did not want to?

Force you with threats or in any other way to perform sexual acts you did not want to?

Say or do something to humiliate you in front of others? Emotional IPV

Threaten to hurt or harm you or someone close to you?

Insult you or make you feel bad about yourself?

Multiple regression model:

5.How did the authors choose which variables to include in the model? Is it based on the bivariate associations presented in Table 2? Please include degrees of freedom and p-value for each crosstabulation. This is important for the reader to see these values. Or use asterisks to indicate the level of significance. *p<.05; ** p=< .01; *** p<.001

Response: This is a good point. However, we used (answered in no. 3) modified poission regression model and we didn’t use the crude and adjusted binary logistic regression models.

6.Use variables that have a significant association with IPV at the bi-variate level.

There are some independent variables in the model that might be highly associated (multicollinearity). For example, women afraid of husband and partners controlling behavior; working status and wealth index; Country and districts , etc.

Women might be afraid because of husband’s controlling behavior. It has a direct effect.

Check for multicollinearity.

Response: We checked the Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) to the variables and it ranged from 1.12 to 3.65 which reveals there was no multicolinearity effect (157-58).

Results/

7. Second paragraph… Begin with “Table 2 presents bivariate associations between study variables and the outcome.”

Response: thanks again, it is corrected (162).

8. Discussion-

The question on IPV asks about violence experienced since the age of 15 years. It is possible that they might not have experienced violence with the current husband. So, it is likely that they might be reporting incidents occurred with their prior partners/boyfriends or their experiences with other family members (incest). We cannot establish a direct link to IPV and the prevalence of alcohol consumption of the current partner.

We cannot establish a direct link unless the partner was under the influence when the IPV event occurred. So, the authors need to be careful in claiming direct causation between alcohol and committing violence. Please indicate this fact under limitations.

Response: we appreciate it, the published DHS reports showed 3-10% of adults got divorce and established new relationships in the region. Hence, we included a limitation statement at the end of the discussion stating that, “A limitation of this study is that participants who experienced intimate partner violence (IPV) in a previous relationship may report these incidents when describing their current relationship, potentially confounding the findings” (265-68).

9.Please do not repeat the numbers that are already presented in the tables.

Need to add study limitations section and how they might influence the study findings.

Please include your study implications as you see fit for Sub Sahara African region.

Response: we revised it accordingly. Also, we amend implications to the policymakers, programmers and researchers (274-79).

10.Tables:

Include sample size (N) for all the tables and subgroups.

Table 1: delete % symbol next to each number. Put a note at the bottom of the table saying Note: The prevalence is presented in percentage along with 95% confidence intervals in the parenthesis.

Table 2 : please include degrees of freedom and p-value for each crosstabulation. Or use asterisks to indicate the significance level and add a note at the bottom of the table.

This is important for the reader to see the bivariate association between the study variables and the outcome types of IPV.

Table 3: CI values are missing for education under emotional IPV.

Table 3 title needs to be changed to reflect what is presented.

“Results from multivariable regression predicting odds of IPV” do not use the term “correlation” correlation is a statistical term measuring association between two continuous variables.Note at the bottom:

Note: Adjusted odds ratios and 95% Confidence Intervals are presented in parenthesis.

Add a note at the bottom of the table for the asterisks to indicate the significance level.

*p<.05; ** p=< .01; *** p<.001

Response: thanks for the critical review, we revised all the tables accordingly.

References

1. Barros, A.J. and V.N. Hirakata, Alternatives for logistic regression in cross-sectional studies: an empirical comparison of models that directly estimate the prevalence ratio. BMC medical research methodology, 2003. 3: p. 1-13.

2. Tamhane, A.R., et al., Prevalence odds ratio versus prevalence ratio: choice comes with consequences. Statistics in medicine, 2016. 35(30): p. 5730-5735.

3. Yelland, L.N., A.B. Salter, and P. Ryan, Performance of the modified Poisson regression approach for estimating relative risks from clustered prospective data. American journal of epidemiology, 2011. 174(8): p. 984-992.

4. Zou, G., A modified poisson regression approach to prospective studies with binary data. American journal of epidemiology, 2004. 159(7): p. 702-706.

5. Chernet, A.G. and K.T. Cherie, Prevalence of intimate partner violence against women and associated factors in Ethiopia. BMC women's health, 2020. 20(1): p. 1-7.

6. Straus, M.A. and E.M. Douglas, A short form of the Revised Conflict Tactics Scales, and typologies for severity and mutuality. Violence and victims, 2004. 19(5): p. 507-520.

7. Temmerman, M., Research priorities to address violence against women and girls. The Lancet, 2015. 385(9978): p. e38-e40.

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: Point-by-point response.docx
Decision Letter - Adewale Ashimi, Editor

<p>PONE-D-25-06968R1

Assessing the relationship between Male Alcohol consumption and Intimate Partner Violence against Women in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Dual Dataset Analysis

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Mossie,

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 Dec 14 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.. 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.. 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.. 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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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 . 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 . 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 . 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,

Adewale Olufemi Ashimi, MBBS, MPH, PhD, FWACS

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

Under the background section of the study, it would be appreciated if you could elaborate on what is known about alcohol and intimate partner violence in SSA with appropriate references and where this work stands.

- Lastly, you may wish to highlight the absence of religion in interpreting these findings, which is important in the sociocultural context of SSA especially in the countries considered.

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Reviewers' comments:

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Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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Revision 2

Dear, Editor,

we revised both the manuscript and 'revised manuscript with track changes'.

Thanks for the crucial feedback.

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: Point-by-point_response_auresp_2.docx
Decision Letter - Adewale Ashimi, Editor

-->PONE-D-25-06968R2-->

Assessing the relationship between Male Alcohol consumption and Intimate Partner Violence against Women in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Dual Dataset Analysis

PLOS One

Dear Dr.  Mossie,

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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Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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Reviewer #1: PLOS one paper review December 2025/Jan 2026 REVISION#2

Thank you for considering my review comments on the previous version/s.

Here are some minor comments you might want to consider:

Abstract:

I think the authors should indicate that the final analysis includes 16320 couples instead of 37,465 participants.

REORGANIZE THE TEXT IN METHODOLOGY FOR A BETTER FLOW:

Describe the outcome of interest first

Change “Variables” subheading to “Outcome variable”

DeleteTable 1- include that text in the outcome variable description

Move the text lines 106 to 120 to under Key explanatory variable because alcohol consumption is your main predictor of interest.

Statistical Analysis:

Then the authors need to explain the process how they decided to include the final variables (independent predictors) in the regression model.

How did the authors choose which variables to include in the model? The authors failed to address this

Wealth index and religion are not associated at the bivariate level, so they must be excluded in the final model. Adding too many/unnecessary variables in the final model leads to Overfitting and the model appears to fit well to the current data.

There are some independent variables in the model that might be highly associated (multicollinearity). For example, women afraid of husband and partners controlling behavior;

Briefly report your multicollinearity analysis results to address this concern.

This is still a concern in their analysis. I strongly suggest the authors to rerun the models by excluding these variables and test their assumptions.

Results:

The authors can still reduce the repetition of numbers that are presented in the tables. Just highlight the main findings in this section.

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

**********

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Revision 3

Additional Editor Comments:

Title: we revised the title according to the PLOS policy to, “Assessing the relationship between Male Alcohol consumption and Intimate Partner Violence against Women in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Dual-Dataset Secondary Analysis of Recent DHS Surveys”

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct.

Response: after careful review, we have revised the references by removing two duplicated references, the prior references 43 and 45 were duplicates of 15, and 21. Hence, we have revised it.

Under the background section of the study, it would be appreciated if you could elaborate on what is known about alcohol and intimate partner violence in SSA with appropriate references and where this work stands.

Response: we have revised the manuscript by including a statement describing this feedback (line 75 – 78);

existing evidence revealed that partner alcohol consumption is associated with IPV against women [7, 8 21]. These findings, however, rely on wives’ proxy reports rather than husbands’ direct self-reports. The present study addresses this gap by using paired DHS data from both partners across five countries, providing a more reliable dual-dataset assessment of the relationship

Lastly, you may wish to highlight the absence of religion in interpreting these findings, which is important in the sociocultural context of SSA especially in the countries considered.

Response: again, thanks for the relevant feedback, we have indicated it in the discussion section (line 293 – 300)

Despite the strong socio-cultural role of religion in shaping gender norms and alcohol related behaviors in the region, religious differences in IPV prevalence were not contained in the multivariable analysis. Future studies may examine its mediating or moderating effect.

Point-by-point response to the reviewer

Dear Dr. Mikler,

Thank you for your insightful and valuable feedback, which has greatly strengthened our article. We have revised the manuscript accordingly and would appreciate your review of the updated document.

1. Data analysis

The sampling procedure requires special procedure called weighted complex sampling. This is important for the estimation of appropriate standard errors because of nested sampling. Why were the authors did not conduct complex sampling weighted analysis?

Response: Thank you for your important question. This approach has been addressed in the analysis, and the results are presented in the results section. We have also clarified this further in the manuscript. Specifically, we included the following statement:

"The data were weighted to ensure representativeness and to provide more accurate statistical estimates. We accounted for the complex survey design features of the DHS—namely sampling weights, clustering, and stratification—in all our analyses to ensure that the effect estimates were unbiased and representative at both national and sub-regional levels. In the pooled analyses, we applied de-normalized sampling weights based on each country’s population size and additionally adjusted for country and survey year fixed effects to control for unobserved country-specific factors and temporal trends”.

2. The study outcomes sexual/physical/emotional and pooled IPV are all binary(proportions)

For regression analysis, I would expect them to conduct logistic regression, not linear models which are used if the outcome variable is a continuous variable. Please clarify.

Response: This isa great point. However, the traditional logistic regression model from a cross-sectional study may overestimate the relative risk when the outcome is common and in case of convergence issues modified Poisson regression model performs better in estimating the prevalence ratio. the description is included in the methodology section with references.

“We used the modified Poisson regression models with robust error variance and reported the results as an adjusted prevalence ratio with a 95% confidence interval. This model modified the Posson regression model since the odds ratio estimated using the traditional logistic regression from a cross-sectional study may overestimate the relative risk when the outcome is common [1, 2] and in case of convergence issues this model performs better in estimating the prevalence ratio [3, 4]”.

3. Need details on the process on how the variables were entered. Were they entered all at once or used stepwise regression option?

Response: we used the modified poisson regression model and hence we entered all variables simultaneously.

- Variables

4. Although the authors provided the reference, they should provide details on how pooled IPV and pooled alcohol consumption were computed. Did they add all 5 countries and take the average?

Response: thank you for your valuable comment. We have modified this section in the methodology part.

The IPV is defined as women who had experienced at least one event of physical, emotional or sexual violence since the age of 15 years [5-7].

Table 1: The tool used to measure IPV in the Demographic and Health Surveys.

Question/item IPV type

Push you, shake you, or throw something at you? physical IPV

Slap you?

Twist your arm or pull your hair

Punch you with his/her first or with something that could hurt you?

Kick you, drag you, or beat you up?

Try to choke you or burn you on purpose?

Threaten or attack you with a knife, gun or any other weapon?

Physically force you to have sexual intercourse with him even when you did not want to? Sexual IPV

Physically force you to perform any other sexual acts you did not want to?

Force you with threats or in any other way to perform sexual acts you did not want to?

Say or do something to humiliate you in front of others? Emotional IPV

Threaten to hurt or harm you or someone close to you?

Insult you or make you feel bad about yourself?

Multiple regression model:

5. How did the authors choose which variables to include in the model? Is it based on the bivariate associations presented in Table 2? Please include degrees of freedom and p-value for each crosstabulation. This is important for the reader to see these values. Or use asterisks to indicate the level of significance. *p<.05; ** p=< .01; *** p<.001

Response: This is a good point. However, we used (answered in no. 3) modified poission regression model and we didn’t use the crude and adjusted binary logistic regression models.

6. Use variables that have a significant association with IPV at the bi-variate level.

There are some independent variables in the model that might be highly associated (multicollinearity). For example, women afraid of husband and partners controlling behavior; working status and wealth index; Country and districts , etc.

Women might be afraid because of husband’s controlling behavior. It has a direct effect.

Check for multicollinearity.

Response: We checked the Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) to the variables and it ranged from 1.12 to 3.65 which reveals there was no multicolinearity effect (157-58).

Results/

7. Second paragraph… Begin with “Table 2 presents bivariate associations between study variables and the outcome.”

Response: thanks again, it is corrected (162).

8. Discussion-

The question on IPV asks about violence experienced since the age of 15 years. It is possible that they might not have experienced violence with the current husband. So, it is likely that they might be reporting incidents occurred with their prior partners/boyfriends or their experiences with other family members (incest). We cannot establish a direct link to IPV and the prevalence of alcohol consumption of the current partner.

We cannot establish a direct link unless the partner was under the influence when the IPV event occurred. So, the authors need to be careful in claiming direct causation between alcohol and committing violence. Please indicate this fact under limitations.

Response: we appreciate it, the published DHS reports showed 3-10% of adults got divorce and established new relationships in the region. Hence, we included a limitation statement at the end of the discussion stating that, “A limitation of this study is that participants who experienced intimate partner violence (IPV) in a previous relationship may report these incidents when describing their current relationship, potentially confounding the findings” (265-68).

9. Please do not repeat the numbers that are already presented in the tables.

Need to add study limitations section and how they might influence the study findings.

Please include your study implications as you see fit for Sub Sahara African region.

Response: we revised it accordingly. Also, we amend implications to the policymakers, programmers and researchers (274-79).

10. Tables:

Include sample size (N) for all the tables and subgroups.

Table 1: delete % symbol next to each number. Put a note at the bottom of the table saying Note: The prevalence is presented in percentage along with 95% confidence intervals in the parenthesis.

Table 2 : please include degrees of freedom and p-value for each crosstabulation. Or use asterisks to indicate the significance level and add a note at the bottom of the table.

This is important for the reader to see the bivariate association between the study variables and the outcome types of IPV.

Table 3: CI values are missing for education under emotional IPV.

Table 3 title needs to be changed to reflect what is presented.

“Results from multivariable regression predicting odds of IPV” do not use the term “correlation” correlation is a statistical term measuring association between two continuous variables.Note at the bottom:

Note: Adjusted odds ratios and 95% Confidence Intervals are presented in parenthesis.

Add a note at the bottom of the table for the asterisks to indicate the significance level.

*p<.05; ** p=< .01; *** p<.001

Response: thanks for the critical review, we revised all the tables accordingly.

References

1. Barros, A.J. and V.N. Hirakata, Alternatives for logistic regression in cross-sectional studies: an empirical comparison of models that directly estimate the prevalence ratio. BMC medical research methodology, 2003. 3: p. 1-13.

2. Tamhane, A.R., et al., Prevalence odds ratio versus prevalence ratio: choice comes with consequences. Statistics in medicine, 2016. 35(30): p. 5730-5735.

3. Yelland, L.N., A.B. Salter, and P. Ryan, Performance of the modified Poisson regression approach for estimating relative risks from clustered prospective data. American journal of epidemiology, 2011. 174(8): p. 984-992.

4. Zou, G., A modified poisson regression approach to prospective studies with binary data. American journal of epidemiology, 2004. 159(7): p. 702-706.

5. Chernet, A.G. and K.T. Cherie, Prevalence of intimate partner violence against women and associated factors in Ethiopia. BMC women's health, 2020. 20(1): p. 1-7.

6. Straus, M.A. and E.M. Douglas, A short form of the Revised Conflict Tactics Scales, and typologies for severity and mutuality. Violence and victims, 2004. 19(5): p. 507-520.

7. Temmerman, M., Research priorities to address violence against women and girls. The Lancet, 2015. 385(9978): p. e38-e40.

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: Point-by-point_response_auresp_3.docx
Decision Letter - Adewale Ashimi, Editor

<p>Assessing the relationship between Male Alcohol consumption and Intimate Partner Violence against Women in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Dual-Dataset Secondary Analysis of Recent DHS Surveys

PONE-D-25-06968R3

Dear Mr. Mossie,

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,

Adewale Olufemi Ashimi, MBBS, MPH, PhD, FWACS

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 #2: 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 #2: (No Response)

**********

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

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

**********

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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.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.-->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.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 #2: (No Response)

**********

-->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 #2: (No Response)

**********

-->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 #2: (No Response)

**********

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Reviewer #2: No

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Formally Accepted
Acceptance Letter - Adewale Ashimi, Editor

PONE-D-25-06968R3

PLOS One

Dear Dr. Mossie,

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* All references, tables, and figures are properly cited

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Kind regards,

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on behalf of

Dr. Adewale Olufemi Ashimi

Academic Editor

PLOS One

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