PONE-D-20-40269

Varied and Unexpected Changes in the Well-being of Seniors in the United States amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Mireille Jacobson,

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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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Yuka Kotozaki

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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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 If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references.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 If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

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Comments to the Author

1. 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

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

Reviewer #1: 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

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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

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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: PLOS ONE

Varied and Unexpected Changes in the Well-Being of Seniors in the United States

amid the COIVD-19 Pandemic

The authors examine and present changes in several measures of well-being collected in 2-waves of a national, online panel survey of seniors aged 60-68, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the Introduction, the authors note that prior studies of pandemic-induced changes in well-being of older adults have relied on cross-sectional data or follow respondents post-pandemic. Thus, the significance of the study derives from the panel study design, allowing assessments of well-being before versus after the start of the pandemic. Most comments below request more information/details about the study.

1. Perhaps the most important comment is that the Introduction section lacks information about the context of the pandemic in the U.S. in 2020. Contextualizing the pandemic is important because context is the basis for (or the reasons) why older adults (and other age groups) might be worse off after the pandemic, compared to before the pandemic. Salient elements of context include, but are not limited to, societal changes as the shutdown of the U.S. economy, stay-at-home orders, working from home (when possible), wearing masks, social distancing, closing schools, reduced access to grandchildren and aging parents in nursing homes, and so on. All of these, taken together, are compelling contextual reasons why people’s well-being might decline during the pandemic. Also, five or ten years from now, readers’ memories of the pandemic’s societal impacts may have faded; adding information about context will be a useful reminder to future readers.

Also, related to the above comment, while the panel study design is great, there is no control group: there is no geographic area of the U.S. that is not exposed to the coronavirus. Therefore, it is impossible to estimate how much well-being might have changed in the absence of the pandemic. Does the literature indicate that the secular trend for this age group is one of increasing or decreasing well-being over time, or stable well-being over time?

2. In the Introduction section on page 3, there is a sentence noting that past studies have found that seniors have fared better than other age groups during the pandemic. Why is this so?

3. In the Introduction, the authors hypothesize that changes in well-being may vary by baseline characteristics, such as gender and education. What is the basis (or reasons) for the hypothesized variation?

4. The following comments are for the Methods section:

The baseline survey runs from November 2019 to February 2020. The second wave survey began in April 2020. When did the second wave survey end?

Page 4 indicates respondents were matched to the COVID-19 death count in their county of residence at wave 2. However, in the Results section, findings are presented for COVID-19 rates rather than counts.

In the measures section, please clarify whether the pain measure is for physical pain. On the Web, the documentation for the Cantril ladder indicates the top of the ladder is defined as the best possible life, and the bottom of the ladder is defined as the worst possible life. Consider noting those anchors in the text.

In the regression models with the COVID-19 variables, did those regression models include fixed effects, like in the first set of models?

5. The following comments are for the Results section:

On page 7, the authors describe the change in negative affect off the base. Please add the base value for positive affect and for the Cantril ladder. About 40% of respondents reported pain in wave 1, which sounds high – perhaps there was regression toward the mean?

In Table 1, why are the sample sizes smaller for depressive symptoms and pain?

In Table 1, please consider adding a column on the far right reporting the differences in the means, and whether the differences are significant. Is the statistical test for differences in wave 1 versus wave 2 a bivariate test (unadjusted)? If t-tests are conducted, were paired t-tests conducted?

Table 1 just contains descriptive statistics for the dependent variables. Please add a table indicating descriptive statistics for sociodemographic characteristics in wave 1.

In the footnotes to Figure 1 and Figure 2, please add a sentence describing the regression models that produced the estimates in each Figure.

There are increasing reports in the literature that the pandemic is having more severe impacts on vulnerable groups. In Figure 1, does the data set allow comparison of low-come versus other incomes? Comparisons of other racial groups within the broad “nonwhite” category?

6. In the Discussion section, the authors note that self-rated health did not change between wave 1 and wave 2. Does this finding suggest that general measures of health status are less susceptible to change than the more specific measures of emotional well-being?

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Reviewer #1: Yes: David Grembowski

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PLOS ONE.docx

PONE-D-20-40269R1

Varied and Unexpected Changes in the Well-being of Seniors in the United States amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Mireille Jacobson,

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 Jun 23 2021 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.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal 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: http://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.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Yuka Kotozaki

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

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.

[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: (No Response)

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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

**********

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

Reviewer #1: 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

**********

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

**********

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: PLOS ONE

Varied and Unexpected Changes in the Well-Being of Seniors in the United States

amid the COIVD-19 Pandemic

Revision

The authors examine and present changes in several measures of well-being collected in 2-waves of a national, online panel survey of seniors aged 60-68, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The revised manuscript is responsive to comments raised in the prior original manuscript. Some minor comments are presented below for consideration.

1. The Introduction section is very engaging and should be well-received by readers. A minor point is that, in the last sentence of the Introduction, the authors note that COVID-19 may have differential effects on the study’s dependent variables, which are likely mediated by education, gender, race and other pre-determined characteristics. This sentence may trigger impressions, in the minds of readers, that the authors will be doing a mediation analysis, which is not the case. Some options might be to change this sentence, or perhaps retain the sentence, as is, but touch on this “mediation theme” in the Discussion section.

2. In the Measures section, for clarity, please note the range of the negative affect scale and the range of the positive affect scale.

3. For clarity, in the Statistical Analysis section, please add a sentence defining the terms in Equation 1.

4. The Results section begins with comparisons of the study’s survey characteristics with national representative data sets. These comparisons are great. However, the Methods section does not indicate that such comparisons will be performed.

5. In Table 1, the authors and editor might consider simply noting the sample sizes a single time at the top of the columns.

But please note the 2901 MEPS sample size for depression in the (b) footnote.

6. Could the decline in pain be regression to the mean?

7. Some of the dependent variables unexpectedly declined more for people with incomes above $50,000. Could this be because the pandemic led to a shutdown in the economy and increased unemployment and/or reduced hours worked per week, and people in the above $50,000 category had “more to lose” than people who had low incomes pre-pandemic – resulting in greater declines in the Cantril ladder well-being scores for the higher income group (?).

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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: David Grembowski

[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.

Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PLOS ONE revision.docx

Varied and Unexpected Changes in the Well-being of Seniors in the United States amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

PONE-D-20-40269R2

Dear Dr. Mireille Jacobson,

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,

Yuka Kotozaki

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

**********

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

**********

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

Reviewer #1: 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

**********

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

**********

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: (No Response)

**********

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: David Grembowski