Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJuly 24, 2023
Decision Letter - Tahir Turk, Editor

PONE-D-23-22714The role of community engagement in promoting research participants’ understanding of pharmacogenomic research results: Perspectives of stakeholders involved in HIV/AIDS research and treatmentPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Nabukenya,

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.

hank you for the opportunity to review your study.  We see this as an important area of investigation for dealing with a major pandemic threat. in this regard the manuscript was reviewed by an expert in the area who has provided comprehensive feedback, to which l concur, on a number of issues that will need to be addressed if the manuscript will be accepted for publishing at PLOS ONE. If you choose to resubmit we request that you carefully note the comments by the reviewer below, and address each issue in your resubmission. Alternatively, you may consider submitting to another journal. If you choose to resubmit, please submit your revised manuscript by Nov 25 2023 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: 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.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Tahir Turk, 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. We suggest you thoroughly copyedit your manuscript for language usage, spelling, and grammar. If you do not know anyone who can help you do this, you may wish to consider employing a professional scientific editing service. 

Whilst you may use any professional scientific editing service of your choice, PLOS has partnered with both American Journal Experts (AJE) and Editage to provide discounted services to PLOS authors. Both organizations have experience helping authors meet PLOS guidelines and can provide language editing, translation, manuscript formatting, and figure formatting to ensure your manuscript meets our submission guidelines. To take advantage of our partnership with AJE, visit the AJE website (http://learn.aje.com/plos/) for a 15% discount off AJE services. To take advantage of our partnership with Editage, visit the Editage website (www.editage.com) and enter referral code PLOSEDIT for a 15% discount off Editage services.  If the PLOS editorial team finds any language issues in text that either AJE or Editage has edited, the service provider will re-edit the text for free.

Upon resubmission, please provide the following:

The name of the colleague or the details of the professional service that edited your manuscript

A copy of your manuscript showing your changes by either highlighting them or using track changes (uploaded as a *supporting information* file)

A clean copy of the edited manuscript (uploaded as the new *manuscript* file)

3. Thank you for stating the following in the Acknowledgments Section of your manuscript: 

"This study was funded by the Fogarty International Center of the National Institute of Health through the Makerere University International Bioethics Research Training Program Grant Number D43TW010892. The authors would like to acknowledge the assistance offered by the Faculty at Berman Institute of Bioethics, Johns Hopkins University and the Faculty of Makerere University International Bioethics who contributed to the study design and interpretation of the results. Waitt C is funded by Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Career Development Fellowship. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health."

We note that you have provided funding information that is currently declared in your Funding Statement. However, funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form. 

Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows: 

"This study was funded by the Fogarty International Center of the National Institute of Health through the Makerere University International Bioethics Research Training Program Grant Number D43TW010892. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."

Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf.

4. In your Data Availability statement, you have not specified where the minimal data set underlying the results described in your manuscript can be found. PLOS defines a study's minimal data set as the underlying data used to reach the conclusions drawn in the manuscript and any additional data required to replicate the reported study findings in their entirety. All PLOS journals require that the minimal data set be made fully available. For more information about our data policy, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability.

Upon re-submitting your revised manuscript, please upload your study’s minimal underlying data set as either Supporting Information files or to a stable, public repository and include the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers within your revised cover letter. For a list of acceptable repositories, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-recommended-repositories. Any potentially identifying patient information must be fully anonymized.

Important: If there are ethical or legal restrictions to sharing your data publicly, please explain these restrictions in detail. Please see our guidelines for more information on what we consider unacceptable restrictions to publicly sharing data: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-unacceptable-data-access-restrictions. Note that it is not acceptable for the authors to be the sole named individuals responsible for ensuring data access.

We will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide in your cover letter.

5. We note that you have stated that you will provide repository information for your data at acceptance. Should your manuscript be accepted for publication, we will hold it until you provide the relevant accession numbers or DOIs necessary to access your data. If you wish to make changes to your Data Availability statement, please describe these changes in your cover letter and we will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide.

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

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: N/A

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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: No

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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: Thank you for the opportunity to review your study. I welcome more literature to bolster Community Engagement practices in different parts of public health and the HIV response.

The study design is adequate, as are the data collection and analysis sections. I do have some recommendations that might increase the study's impact.

#1) Differentiate with responses. When I conduct focus groups, I usually have a design that differentiates people's roles to different focus groups. This way I can look at comparisons across groups with norms and concerns. You've presented the data as if all respondents - researchers, ethics committee members, and community members - all agree across every issue.

#2) Identify what is important in the study and lean into it. You're providing stories on how various actors feel about concepts of community engagement. The report back on findings seems dry, and basically is reduced to "Community Engagement is important." Why and how are key questions that you do not approach directly.

#3) Avoid jargon. While you discuss pharmacogenomic research, it is often jargon. What makes this kind of research important for people living with HIV and who decides it's important? What are the ramifications of the research? There are times when you seem to conflate research with clinical practice (e.g. the individual wants their data from research). How is this possible? You make an assumption that all readers are up to date in this part of the field.

#4) Barriers to Community Engagement are not identified. This is odd, as most researchers will discuss their frustrations openly (e.g. funding requirements, time, lack of expertise) yet there was little of that here (outside of language). Other barriers could be highlighted more.

Thank you for the opportunity to review your study.

**********

6. 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: No

**********

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.

Revision 1

22 November 2023

Academic Editor,

PLOS ONE Journal

Dear Dr Tahir Turk,

RE: Response to reviewers’ comments.

On behalf of the authors, I take this opportunity to appreciate you and the reviewers for sparing time to review and provide insightful feedback to improve the quality of our manuscript entitled “The role of community engagement in promoting research participants’ understanding of pharmacogenomic research results: Perspectives of stakeholders involved in HIV/AIDS research and treatment” PONE-D-23-22714 for consideration by the PLOS ONE journal.

I hereby submit a point-by-point response to the peer review comments of the above named manuscript (attached).

We have positively responded to all the concerns raised by the reviewers and we believe that their feedback has greatly improved the quality of our work and readability of our manuscript.

Yours sincerely,

Sylvia Nabukenya

Email: nabukenyas89@gmail.com

RESPONSE TO ADDITIONAL JOURNAL REQUIREMENTS

ID COMMENTS RESPONSES

01 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

Thank you very much for raising this comment and providing the links to the style templates. We have revised the format of the manuscript as guided.

02 We suggest you thoroughly copyedit your manuscript for language usage, spelling, and grammar. If you do not know anyone who can help you do this, you may wish to consider employing a professional scientific editing service.

Upon resubmission, please provide the following:

The name of the colleague or the details of the professional service that edited your manuscript Thank you very much for raising this comment. We acknowledge that the version of the manuscript that was initially submitted had several spelling and grammatical errors. However, the authors have proof-read the revised manuscript and also sought an independent review from a colleague, Dr. Jerome Roy Semakula who recently excelled in his IELTS exam.

03 We note that you have provided funding information that is currently declared in your Funding Statement. However, funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form.

Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Thank you very much for raising this comment. We have deleted the funding information from the acknowledgment section in the revised manuscript. Thank you once again for the correction.

We request to maintain the funding information in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form

04 In your Data Availability statement, you have not specified where the minimal data set underlying the results described in your manuscript can be found. PLOS defines a study's minimal data set as the underlying data used to reach the conclusions drawn in the manuscript and any additional data required to replicate the reported study findings in their entirety. Thank you for raising this comment. We appreciate the spirit of sharing data for replication of the reported study findings and other benefits of data sharing. The data has been reported as quotes in the results section of the manuscript. This is the minimal data set used to reach the conclusions described in the manuscript.

05 We note that you have stated that you will provide repository information for your data at acceptance. Should your manuscript be accepted for publication, we will hold it until you provide the relevant accession numbers or DOIs necessary to access your data. If you wish to make changes to your Data Availability statement, please describe these changes in your cover letter and we will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide. Thank you very much for raising this concern. I have provided the minimal data set as quotes reported in the results section of the manuscript.

RESPONSES TO PEER REVIEW COMMENTS

ID COMMENT RESPONSES Page Line

01 Differentiate with responses. When I conduct focus groups, I usually have a design that differentiates people's roles to different focus groups. This way I can look at comparisons across groups with norms and concerns. You've presented the data as if all respondents - researchers, ethics committee members, and community members - all agree across every issue.

Thank you very for raising this comment. This comment has helped us realize that we needed to clarify how the data were collected across the different study populations. We conducted focus group discussions with community representatives from five research institutions offering care and treatment to people living with HI. We also conducted key informant interviews with researchers involved in pharmacogenomic research and HIV treatment and in-depth interviews with members of research ethics committees who had prior experience in reviewing pharmacogenomic research for HIV treatment. We do agree with you that all the above categories of respondents have different roles and that their feedback has been presented with their roles. We have followed your recommendation on how to present the results and the discussion of our findings. The contributions from each category of the respondents have been well labelled at the end of each quote in the results section. 16 -29 NA

02 Identify what is important in the study and lean into it. You're providing stories on how various actors feel about concepts of community engagement. The report back on findings seems dry, and basically is reduced to "Community Engagement is important." Why and how are key questions that you do not approach directly. Thank you very much for raising this comment. We have followed your recommendation to focus on the research question when discussing our findings. We have provided detailed information to why and how community engagement plays an important role in promoting participants’ understanding of pharmacogenomic research results. 29-33 N/A

03 Avoid jargon. While you discuss pharmacogenomic research, it is often jargon. What makes this kind of research important for people living with HIV and who decides it's important? What are the ramifications of the research? There are times when you seem to conflate research with clinical practice (e.g. the individual wants their data from research). How is this possible? You make an assumption that all readers are up to date in this part of the field. Thank you very much for raising this comment. This comment has helped us realize that we needed to revise our discussion section. We have provided more detail about the importance of pharmacogenomic research to PLHIV and the researchers involved in the treatment of HIV/AIDS. We have also provided details on the ramifications of this research and tried to explain what pharmacogenomic research is to avoid jargon. 29-33 N/A

04 Barriers to Community Engagement are not identified. This is odd, as most researchers will discuss their frustrations openly (e.g. funding requirements, time, lack of expertise) yet there was little of that here (outside of language). Other barriers could be highlighted more. We have also provided information about other challenges that researchers experience when engaging communities in addition to some of them that were already mentioned. For example the absence of genetic counsellors who may be the most suitable professionals to determine the safe approaches and methods of communicating genomic and pharmacogenomic research information in different communities. In addition, we have added information about the limited funding for community engagement activities in some research institutions. 32 624-625

05 Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement Thank you very much for your feedback. We have revised the acknowledgment section as advised. 34 670-672

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: Responses to reviewers.docx
Decision Letter - Tahir Turk, Editor

PONE-D-23-22714R1The role of community engagement in promoting research participants’ understanding of pharmacogenomic research results: Perspectives of stakeholders involved in HIV/AIDS research and treatmentPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Nabukenya,

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 Jan 27 2024 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: 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.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Tahir Turk, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments:

Dear Dr Nabukenya

Thank-you for addressing the reviewer feedback on your manuscript and making amendments on the funding statement and acknowledgements. However, when submitting a manuscript, authors must provide a Data Availability Statement describing compliance with PLOS' data policy. If the article is accepted for publication, the Data Availability Statement will be published as part of the article. PLOS believes that sharing data fosters scientific progress. Data availability allows and facilitates:

- Validation, replication, reanalysis, new analysis, reinterpretation or inclusion into meta-analyses;

- Reproducibility of research;

- Efforts to ensure data are archived, increasing the value of the investment made in funding scientific research;

- Reduction of the burden on authors in preserving and finding old data, and managing data access requests;

- Citation and linking of research data and their associated articles, enhancing visibility and ensuring recognition for authors, data producers and curators.

Acceptable data sharing methods are listed in PLSO ONE's Data Availability information section https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability, which provides guidance for authors as to what must be included in their Data Availability Statement and how to follow best practices in research reporting. Publication is conditional on compliance with this policy. Therefore, PLOS strongly recommends sharing data in a repository whenever possible. Data repositories improve discoverability and accessibility, ensure long-term preservation, and lead to increased attention for the research. The Minimal Data Set Definition consist of the data required to replicate all study findings reported in the article, as well as related metadata and methods. Additionally, PLOS requires that authors comply with field-specific standards for preparation, recording, and deposition of data when applicable.

Given these requirements we believe the dFGD data-set and the KIIs and IDI datasets from your study should be provided in a public data repository with relevant DOI identifiers. Failing compliance with the minimal dat set requirements, will mean your manuscript cannot be accepted for publishing by our Journal.

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

[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.

Revision 2

2 January 2024

Academic Editor,

PLOS ONE Journal

Dear Dr Tahir Turk,

RE: Response to reviewers’ comments.

On behalf of the authors, I take this opportunity to appreciate you and the reviewers for sparing time to review and provide insightful feedback to improve the quality of our manuscript entitled “The role of community engagement in promoting research participants’ understanding of pharmacogenomic research results: Perspectives of stakeholders involved in HIV/AIDS research and treatment” PONE-D-23-22714R1 for consideration by the PLOS ONE journal.

I hereby submit a point-by-point response to the peer review comments of the above named manuscript (attached).

We have positively responded to all the concerns raised by the reviewers and we believe that their feedback has greatly improved the quality and readability of our manuscript.

Yours sincerely,

Sylvia Nabukenya

Email: nabukenyas89@gmail.com

RESPONSE TO ADDITIONAL JOURNAL REQUIREMENTS

ID COMMENTS RESPONSES

01 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

Thank you very much for raising this comment and providing the links to the style templates. We have revised the format of the manuscript as guided.

02 We suggest you thoroughly copyedit your manuscript for language usage, spelling, and grammar. If you do not know anyone who can help you do this, you may wish to consider employing a professional scientific editing service.

Upon resubmission, please provide the following:

The name of the colleague or the details of the professional service that edited your manuscript Thank you very much for raising this comment. We acknowledge that the version of the manuscript that was initially submitted had several spelling and grammatical errors. However, the authors have proof-read the revised manuscript and also sought an independent review from a colleague, Dr. Jerome Roy Semakula who recently excelled in his IELTS exam.

03 We note that you have provided funding information that is currently declared in your Funding Statement. However, funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form.

Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Thank you very much for raising this comment. We have deleted the funding information from the acknowledgment section in the revised manuscript. Thank you once again for the correction.

We request to maintain the funding information in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form

04 In your Data Availability statement, you have not specified where the minimal data set underlying the results described in your manuscript can be found. PLOS defines a study's minimal data set as the underlying data used to reach the conclusions drawn in the manuscript and any additional data required to replicate the reported study findings in their entirety. Thank you for raising this comment. We appreciate the spirit of sharing data for replication of the reported study findings and other benefits of data sharing. The minimal data sets used to reach the conclusions described in the manuscript will be provided once accepted for publication.

05 We note that you have stated that you will provide repository information for your data at acceptance. Should your manuscript be accepted for publication, we will hold it until you provide the relevant accession numbers or DOIs necessary to access your data. If you wish to make changes to your Data Availability statement, please describe these changes in your cover letter and we will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide. Thank you very much for raising this comment. Once the manuscript is accepted for publication, we shall provide the dFGD, KIIs and IDI data sets.

RESPONSES TO PEER REVIEW COMMENTS

ID COMMENT RESPONSES Page Line

01 Differentiate with responses. When I conduct focus groups, I usually have a design that differentiates people's roles to different focus groups. This way I can look at comparisons across groups with norms and concerns. You've presented the data as if all respondents - researchers, ethics committee members, and community members - all agree across every issue.

Thank you very for raising this comment. This comment has helped us realize that we needed to clarify how the data were collected across the different study populations. We conducted focus group discussions with community representatives from five research institutions offering care and treatment to people living with HI. We also conducted key informant interviews with researchers involved in pharmacogenomic research and HIV treatment and in-depth interviews with members of research ethics committees who had prior experience in reviewing pharmacogenomic research for HIV treatment. We do agree with you that all the above categories of respondents have different roles and that their feedback has been presented with their roles. We have followed your recommendation on how to present the results and the discussion of our findings. The contributions from each category of the respondents have been well labelled at the end of each quote in the results section. 16 -29 NA

02 Identify what is important in the study and lean into it. You're providing stories on how various actors feel about concepts of community engagement. The report back on findings seems dry, and basically is reduced to "Community Engagement is important." Why and how are key questions that you do not approach directly. Thank you very much for raising this comment. We have followed your recommendation to focus on the research question when discussing our findings. We have provided detailed information to why and how community engagement plays an important role in promoting participants’ understanding of pharmacogenomic research results. 29-33 N/A

03 Avoid jargon. While you discuss pharmacogenomic research, it is often jargon. What makes this kind of research important for people living with HIV and who decides it's important? What are the ramifications of the research? There are times when you seem to conflate research with clinical practice (e.g. the individual wants their data from research). How is this possible? You make an assumption that all readers are up to date in this part of the field. Thank you very much for raising this comment. This comment has helped us realize that we needed to revise our discussion section. We have provided more detail about the importance of pharmacogenomic research to PLHIV and the researchers involved in the treatment of HIV/AIDS. We have also provided details on the ramifications of this research and tried to explain what pharmacogenomic research is to avoid jargon. 29-33 N/A

04 Barriers to Community Engagement are not identified. This is odd, as most researchers will discuss their frustrations openly (e.g. funding requirements, time, lack of expertise) yet there was little of that here (outside of language). Other barriers could be highlighted more. We have also provided information about other challenges that researchers experience when engaging communities in addition to some of them that were already mentioned. For example the absence of genetic counsellors who may be the most suitable professionals to determine the safe approaches and methods of communicating genomic and pharmacogenomic research information in different communities. In addition, we have added information about the limited funding for community engagement activities in some research institutions. 32 624-625

05 Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement Thank you very much for your feedback. We have revised the acknowledgment section as advised. 34 670-672

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: Responses to reviewers.docx
Decision Letter - Tahir Turk, Editor

The role of community engagement in promoting research participants’ understanding of pharmacogenomic research results: Perspectives of stakeholders involved in HIV/AIDS research and treatment

PONE-D-23-22714R2

Dear Dr.Nabukenya,

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.

An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Tahir Turk, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments 

Thank-you for addressing the concerns of the reviewer in the revised manuscript. Although we note that the authors have not included a COREQ or similar qualitative research checklist with the manuscript we note that a number of the checklist requirements have been addressed through the revision. We are also pleased to see practical and pragmatic recommendations emanating from the study.

Reviewers' Comments to the Author

Reviewer #1: Thank you for addressing my concerns in my review. I found the current version of the study to be interesting and compelling. All comments have been addressed

**********

Formally Accepted
Acceptance Letter - Tahir Turk, Editor

PONE-D-23-22714R2

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Nabukenya,

I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now being handed over to our production team.

At this stage, our production department will prepare your paper for publication. This includes ensuring the following:

* All references, tables, and figures are properly cited

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