Reviewer’s report
Title: 
Risk and Protective Factors Associated Mental Health among Female
Military Veterans: Results from the Veterans’ Health Study
Version: 
0 
Date: 
04 May 2020
Reviewer's report:
Thank you for the opportunity to review the manuscript. It will be strengthened
if the following is addressed:
1) Background would be stronger if it included coverage of the literature on
VSOs providing healthcare to women veterans; 
2) Note the extent of missingness of the indicator, covariates, and outcome;
3) Note how missing data were modeled/handled;
4) Mention whether matching was used with or without replacement; 
5) Provide evidence on covariate balance before and after the propensity scores;
6) Note and provide justification of no unmeasured confounders;
7) Describe assessment of the sensitivity to a potential unobserved confounder;
8) Present sample size in groups before and after propensity score adjustment;
9) Provide graphical display of propensity overlap, before and after the
application of the approach;
10) Discussion would be stronger if it included specific recommendations on
how non-VA healthcare delivery systems can improve gender-specific healthcare
services;
11) Again, Discussion would be stronger if it linked the results back to the VSO-
related literature on women veterans; and
12) Conclusion makes a claim on the importance of this sort of study on
developing public-private partnerships, which needs to be better supported and
explained within the manuscript.
Are the methods appropriate and well described?
If not, please specify what is required in your comments to the authors.
No
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.
No
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
questions:
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 shares 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 received 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 interests 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.
Reviewer Publication Consent.
 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
) if this manuscript is accepted for
publication. Any comments that I do not wish to be included in the published
report have been included as confidential comments to the editor, which will not
be published.
If you are not happy for us to publish this report, please contact the editorial
office before completing the review.
If you wish, you can include your name in your published report. Please note
you must decide whether to include your name at the start of the process and
confirm this decision whenever prompted. If you change your decision later, we
will not be able to publish your name.
I agree to the terms of the CC-BY 4.0 license; please 
do not
 publish my name
with my report. (default)