10.1371/journal.pgph.0004747.r002
Decision Letter 0
Faizi
Nafis
Academic Editor
2025
Nafis Faizi
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Submission Version
0
7 May 2025
PGPH-D-25-00251
Change in confidence in public health entities among US adults between 2020-2024
PLOS Global Public Health
Dear Dr. Malik,
Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS Global Public Health. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS Global Public Health’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,
Nafis Faizi, MD, MPH
Academic Editor
PLOS Global Public Health
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Reviewer's Responses to Questions
Comments to the Author
1. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Global Public Health’s publication criteria ? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.
Reviewer #1: Yes
Reviewer #2: Yes
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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?
Reviewer #1: Yes
Reviewer #2: I don't know
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Reviewer #1: Yes
Reviewer #2: Yes
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Reviewer #1: Yes
Reviewer #2: 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: Your methods section is well-organized and provides a clear overview of survey development, analysis, and ethical considerations. However, there are a few areas where clarity, consistency, and detail can be improved.
Strengths: the sections flow smoothly. You specify the use of CloudResearch and Qualtrics, as well as the survey timeframe and incentives. Appropriate statistical analysis methods – Use of survey weighting, confidence intervals, and p-values is correctly described. IRB approvals and ethical considerations are well-documented.
Areas of improvement:
Clarify survey design (cross-sectional, longitudinal, or sampling?).
The sentence "Between February 2020 and October 2024, we conducted four surveys assessing confidence in public health entities..." implies a continuous process, but surveys were conducted at four distinct time points (not continuously). Specify whether the surveys were discrete cross-sectional assessments or an ongoing study.
Standardize date formatting for consistency.
"Participants were recruited from February 4-7, 2020, for Survey 1, from May 6-7, 2020, for Survey 2, from June 8-13, 2022, for Survey 3, and from September 20-27, 2024, for Survey 4." The mix of different prepositions and punctuation makes this harder to read. Consider "Survey 1 was conducted from February 4–7, 2020; Survey 2 from May 6–7, 2020; Survey 3 from June 8–13, 2022; and Survey 4 from September 20–27, 2024."
Were participants randomly selected? Stratified? Quota-based?
"Survey weights were calculated based on age, gender, and race estimations sourced from the American Community Survey (ACS) 2022." What about education level, geographic region, or income? Why were they excluded?
Strengthen survey weighting and statistical analysis description.
"Significance was determined as anything with a p-value less than an alpha of 0.05." sounds too informal—use "statistical significance was defined as p <0.05."
Improve ethical statement to ensure clarity on data privacy & consent.
"Participants were advised at the start of the survey that by continuing with the questionnaire, they were consenting to participating in the study." Consider "consenting to participate."
Address potential metadata collection concerns for better confidentiality assurances.
The statement "No personal data was collected from respondents." is good, but does it include IP addresses, cookies, or metadata? Qualtrics automatically collect metadata (e.g., location, device type). If this data was not stored or used, clarify this to strengthen data privacy assurances.
Reviewer #2: The topic is interesting. The manuscript has a good flow and is written in brief and an interesting way. I have a few suggestions to consider.
Was the study population same for all four surveys? While the method section describe the participants were recruited from pre-existing panels in the CloudResearch survey system, but do not explicitly state whether the same individuals participated in all four surveys or if each survey comprised a new, independent sample drawn from the same pool.
What was the sample size of all four surveys?
The IRB permission from two different universities also create slight confusion. For the first three survey (2020 and 2022) Institutional Review Board permission taken from Yale University while for 4th survey (2024) taken from University of Texas. These two university are located in different states, and their residents may differ in perception regards public entities. Consider highlighting it in limitation section, if the survey population is different in these four surveys.
In methods section last para – ‘Among disease-specific questions’, can you explain what do you mean by this, I could not see its relevance in the current study. Kindly rewrite the sentence for clarity (confidence in public health entities repeated twice in same sentence)
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Reviewer #1: Yes: Obianuju Genevieve Aguolu
Reviewer #2: No
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