Dear Dr. Gatwiri,

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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ACADEMIC EDITOR:

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Please submit your revised manuscript by Jul 24 2026 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.

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

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Charles Odilichukwu R. Okpala, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS One

Journal requirements:

When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements.

1.Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf

2. If the reviewer comments include a recommendation to cite specific previously published works, please review and evaluate these publications to determine whether they are relevant and should be cited. There is no requirement to cite these works unless the editor has indicated otherwise.

3. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments:

Kindly address all concerns raised by reviewers, please.

Ensure to provide as much detail as possible, not only in the revised work, but to reviewers comments, best to tabulate them point by point , ok

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Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: No

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English??>

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: This manuscript presents a cross-sectional study assessing food safety knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) among poultry vendors in an urban wet market in Nairobi, Kenya. The topic is relevant and provides useful insights into food safety challenges in informal market settings.

However, several issues need to be addressed to improve the scientific rigor and clarity of the manuscript:

Study design and sampling: The sampling strategy is not clearly described. Clarification is needed on whether the sample was random or convenience-based, as this has implications for selection bias.

Measurement and scoring: The use of an 80% cutoff to classify knowledge, attitudes, and practices is not justified. The authors should provide a rationale or supporting references.

Statistical analysis: Some reported odds ratios have confidence intervals that approach or cross 1, yet are interpreted as significant. The authors should carefully review statistical interpretations and clarify whether multivariable analyses were performed.

Interpretation of findings: Some conclusions are slightly overstated, particularly regarding the relative importance of attitudes versus knowledge. The discussion should better reflect the limitations of a cross-sectional design.

Use of observational data: Although an observational component is mentioned, it is not clearly integrated into the analysis. This should be clarified or strengthened.

Limitations: The discussion of limitations should be expanded, especially regarding potential social desirability bias and generalizability.

Minor comments:

Improve clarity and reduce repetition in some sections.

Ensure consistency in tables and formatting.

Overall, the manuscript addresses an important topic but requires revisions to improve methodological clarity and interpretation of results.

Reviewer #2: The statistical analyses are appropriate, but please see comments in particular about the 'attitude' component of the analysis. It is unclear to this reviewer if that variable is being interpreted correctly.

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what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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NAAS will assess whether your figures meet our technical requirements by comparing each figure against our figure specifications.

Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Major Comments.docx

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-26-11826_reviewer.pdf

Dear Dr. Gatwiri,

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.

==============================

ACADEMIC EDITOR:

==============================

Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 04 2026 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.

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

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

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

As the corresponding author, your ORCID iD is verified in the submission system and will appear in the published article. PLOS supports the use of ORCID, and we encourage all coauthors to register for an ORCID iD and use it as well. Please encourage your coauthors to verify their ORCID iD within the submission system before final acceptance, as unverified ORCID iDs will not appear in the published article. Only  the individual author can complete the verification step; PLOS staff cannot  verify ORCID iDs on behalf of authors.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Charles Odilichukwu R. Okpala, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS One

Journal Requirements:

If the reviewer comments include a recommendation to cite specific previously published works, please review and evaluate these publications to determine whether they are relevant and should be cited. There is no requirement to cite these works unless the editor has indicated otherwise.

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments:

Please, revise accordingly

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

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

**********

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions??>

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English??>

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

Reviewer #1: This version of the manuscript is considerably improved compared to the previous submission. The literature review is more thorough, and the discussion is more directly connected to the objectives of the study. Statistics analyses are mostly suitable, but authors are urged to scrutinize logistic regression output.

Certain odds ratios, confidence intervals, and associated p values in Table 3 are contradictory (e.g.

CI including 1, but a significant p-value reported). These numbers must be checked and corrected if applicable. A bit stronger comment in Discussion on the policy and public health implications is warranted. Could add one paragraph highlighting how policy and public health interventions should be adapted to the findings in the context of the informal wet market context.

The discussion on limitations seems adequate, authors may need to briefly reflect that generalizability to other locations is somewhat limited as study was conducted in only one urban wet market.

This paper is overall well-written, methodologically sound and reports an important public health concern. I am happy to accept the paper for publication with the suggested modifications.

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

**********

what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review?  For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

**********

[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.]

To ensure your figures meet our technical requirements, please review our figure guidelines: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/figures

You may also use PLOS’s free figure tool, NAAS, to help you prepare publication quality figures: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/figures#loc-tools-for-figure-preparation.

NAAS will assess whether your figures meet our technical requirements by comparing each figure against our figure specifications.

Food safety dynamics in urban wet markets: knowledge, attitudes, and practices of poultry vendors in Burma Market, Nairobi, Kenya

PONE-D-26-11826R2

Dear Dr. Gatwiri,

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,

Charles Odilichukwu R. Okpala, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS One

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Acceptable for publication

Reviewers' comments: