-->PONE-D-26-04738-->-->Associations of egocentric social network characteristics with conversations about the harms of smoking and benefits of quitting-->-->PLOS One

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Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

I believe this manuscript is interesting and well-written. I believe this will make an important contribution to the literature once methodological considerations highlighted by both reviewers are addressed.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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-->5. Review Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: Thanks for the opportunity to review this manuscript! It is very well-written and timely, providing important information about tailoring interventions for smoking cessation to account for social network dynamics. I have a few comments to strengthen the manuscript:

Throughout

-Some inconsistencies with capitalization and abbreviations (white vs White, US vs. U.S.)

-switch to person first language (people who smoke instead of smokers)

Abstract

-Can the authors describe what’s in the messages? Are they images or text based? What is the focus of the messages?

-Line 29 typo "...network smoking prevalence WAS positively associated..."

-Did models adjust for study condition?

Intro

Line 42- typo ‘influence affect behaviors’ take out ‘affect’

Line 142-145- did you hypothesize that the association would be positive or negative?

Methods

-Were alters with ‘don’t know’ responses dropped from number or treated as non-smokers?

-Given that the study is from an experiment involving messaging, the authors should provide more detail about the specific messaging used.

-Did authors check for multicollinearity (VIFs) between network size and number of smokers/disapprovers? Should be reported, if so.

Results

-Line 313 typo average NUMBER OF cigarettes

Discussion

Line 355- missing period at the end of paragraph

Line 396- typo much LARGER samples

Reviewer #2: The manuscript requires improvement.

Line 150-154: The detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are to be provided.

Line 261: The coding of this variable is to be clearly stated.

Line 269: The symbol ; is to be replaced with a comma.

Line 270, Table 1: The order of education level is to be revised e.g. ≤ high school; technical school, some college, community college, or university degree or more.

Line 277: Proper citation of the statistical software is to be given e.g. Stata 17 (StataCorp, College Station, TX, USA)

Line 280: The name of the statistical test is to be stated, e.g. the mixed effects logistic regression models were fitted using e.g. GLMM etc

A statement on ‘Model assumptions for the statistical test, e.g., generalized linear mixed models, were satisfied is to be provided.

Line 286-288, 290-294: The paragraph is unclear and requires revision.

Line 289: The equation is commonly expressed in generalized linear mixed effects model (GLMM). A two-level mixed-effects logistic regression model with a random intercept is specified as logit(P(Yij=1))=β0+β1X1ij+⋯+βkXkij+u0j

Line 298: The rationale of using multiple imputation is to be stated. Example the type of missingness is to be stated e.g. MAR, MCAR etc

Line 311 and other sections: The decimal point for the percentage figures in the text should be standardized with the figures in the tables.

Line 315-316: The SD value is larger than the mean, indicating the probability of skewness.

Table 2 and 3: For the sample size n, indicate clearly which one represents 365, 366, 348, 349.

Random effects, ICC, model fit, etc., if any, are to be reported.

Line 303, Supplementary Tables S2: Given that multiple imputation was used, clarify how many imputed datasets were generated and whether all datasets were analyzed and pooled? This is to be clearly described.

Some references do not conform to the journal’s formatting requirements.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Associations of egocentric social network characteristics with conversations about the harms of smoking and benefits of quitting

PONE-D-26-04738R1

Dear Dr. Thrasher,

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.

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Kind regards,

David T. Zhu

Academic Editor

PLOS One

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

The authors have addressed all comments brought forth by the reviewers. I am pleased to recommend acceptance.

Reviewers' comments: