Reviewer ’s report  
 
Title: Correlates of Alcoholics Anonymous affiliation among justice -involved women  
 
Version: 0 Date: 29 Jan 2018  
 
Reviewer: Robert L.  Peralta  
 
Reviewer's report:  
 
Introduction/Literature Review:  
On first page line 7 has statistics from 2012 for AUD, if possible provide n ewer statistics.  
Page 1 line 13: Discussion of AA attendance and decreased drinking for many populations - 
authors should specifically state which populations to make this clearer.  
The last sentence of paragraph 2 on page 1 discusses AA affiliation incorpor ating different 
things - the author should also include the fact that sober members get "chips" for so many days 
of being sober as this is a tangible way to display their decrease in drinking.  
In paragraph 2 the authors discuss how AA meetings are more ea sily acceptable especially for 
justice involved women. This should be discussed in more detail in terms of cultural health 
capital and access to resources (possible previous incarcerations may lead to less resources to 
AUD treatments).  
The authors could di scuss AUD in relation to other substance usage in the literature review.  
On page 1 line 24 the authors discuss disaffiliation with AA, again this could be discussed in 
more detail and relate to cultural health capital.  
On page 1 line 25 the authors discus s that women may react differently to AA than men, but they 
do not discuss how they may differ.  
On page 2 line 5 it is unclear if the authors are discussing this in general, for women, or justice 
involved women.  
The literature review lacks a general theor y to help analyze and guide the analysis of the data. It 
also lacks an in -depth discussion of gender differences, how the authors define gender and AUD, 
possible racial differences for women, possible differences between women that have previous 
incarcerat ions and women that had no previous incarcerations. The authors also do not go into 
enough detail about social factors that may lead to AUD which include family, friends, work, 
stress, and environmental factors (they should see Link and Phelan 1995).  
Important:  The authors should also include some discussion on the efficacy of AA and why AA 
is a useful or important variable of interest.  This discussion needs to occur in the literature 
review and in the discussion of results.   
 
Methods:  
The authors do n ot discuss if the pretrial jail detention is generalizable to other pretrial jail 
detention in the country or when their data was collected.  
The authors should provide the specific questions asked for their variables, which could be done 
in an appendix.  
The authors need to justify why they decided to use official DSM criteria for AUD over other 
possible variables.  
The authors should control for other substance usage, the length of time in jail detention, and 
previous incarcerations as these variables may impact AUD and going to AA.  
The authors need to specify their control variables here and how they coded them.  
How  was missing data dealt with?  
The response rate and total sample size should also be discussed in this section.  
The authors could have used SEM as their analysis method. This would have allowed for CFA to 
be conducted on their instruments and to get a bet ter understanding of the structure of what can 
lead to AA affiliation. The authors could then also split the analysis by if participants had been to 
AA before and had never been to AA before to see if the structures differed.  
 
Results:  
The authors should r eport a correlation table along with their regressions.  
The authors could have ran 2 models. The first model with only control variables for a baseline 
then a second model with the independent variables. The authors could have also ran more 
models where th ey only have 1 independent variable with the controls, followed by a final model 
with all variables included.  
 
Discussion:  
Why do the authors think that the results were mostly non -significant?  
The authors discuss social capital in the second paragraph, but did not discuss this in enough 
detail in the literature review.  
The third paragraph discusses homelessness, and the authors overlook that not having a home 
upon release could be due to social capital and lack of support network.  
There is no discussion  of possible policy implications in the article.  
The lack of theory inhibits the analysis of the results and their possible implications.  
Are the methods appropriate and well described?  
If not, please specify what is required in your comments to the authors.  
 
Yes 
 
Does the work include the necessary controls?  
If not, please specify which controls are required in your comments to the authors.  
 
Yes 
 
Are the conclusions drawn adequately supported by the data shown?  
If not, please explain in your comments to the authors.  
 
Yes 
 
Are you able to assess any statistics in the manuscript or would you recommend an  
additional statistical review?  
If an additional statistical review is recommended, please specify what aspects require further  
assessment in your comments to the editors.  
 
I am able to assess the statistics  
 
Quality of written English  
Please indicate the quality of language in the manuscript:  
 
Acceptable  
 
Declaration of competing interests  
Please complete a declaration of competing interests, considering the following question s: 
 
1. Have you in the past five years received reimbursements, fees, funding, or salary from an  
organisation that may in any way gain or lose financially from the publication of this  
manuscript, either now or in the future?  
 
2. Do you hold any stocks or sha res in an organisation that may in any way gain or lose  
financially from the publication of this manuscript, either now or in the future?  
 
3. Do you hold or are you currently applying for any patents relating to the content of the  
manuscript?  
 
4. Have you re ceived reimbursements, fees, funding, or salary from an organization that 
holds  or has applied for patents relating to the content of the manuscript?  
 
5. Do you have any other financial competing interests?  
 
6. Do you have any non -financial competing interes ts in relation to this paper?  
 
If you can answer no to all of the above, write 'I declare that I have no competing interests' 
below.  If your reply is yes to any, please give details below.  
 
I declare that I have no competing interests  
 
I agree to the open peer review policy of the journal. I understand that my name will be included  
on my report to the authors and, if the manuscript is accepted for publication, my named report  
including any attachments I upload will be posted on the websi te along with the authors'  
responses.  I agree for my report to be made available under an Open Access Creative Commons 
CC-BY license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ). I understand that any comments 
which I do  not wish to be included in my name d report can be included as confidential comments 
to the  editors, which will not be published.  
 
I agree to the open peer review policy of the journal