Reviewer’s report
Title: 
Women’s empowerment and child growth faltering in Ethiopia: evidence
from the Demographic and Health Survey.
Version: 
0 
Date: 
29 Dec 2020
Reviewer: 
Longla Acheliu
Reviewer's report:
The manuscript is well-written, easy to read and comprehend and has interesting
results concerning a critical area of public health (child nutrition). However,
there are a couple of issues that I believe if resolved can greatly improve on the
quality of the manuscript. These are outlined below. 
Abstract (and Results): - On line 37/38/39, I think the sentence should be "One
standard deviation increase in each domain of empowerment was associated with
a reduction in the odds of stunting". Also, looking at the association between
social independence and stunting, the confidence interval for the AOR includes
1, which by default is not supposed to statistically significant. So I think you
should verify the CI or the p-value. 
Introduction : 
- The main outcome variable in 
this study was child growth
faltering in Ethiopia but in this section, the information that you provided on the
issue was a bit limited (only one sentence). I believe you could give more details
on the significance of stunting, underweight and wasting in Ethiopia like trends
over the years, comparison with other developing countries and also some
statistics on the consequences of child growth faltering. 
Methods : - On line 140, I think "was" is missing between that and used
- I think you could give us some background information about the study setting
(Ethiopia) and also to state the study population and units of investigation
clearly. From the results section, I believe the units of investigation are children
under 5 but this needs to be made known in the methods section. 
- 
You mentioned that the DHS data for Ethiopia has only two indicators of
women empowerment ( decision-making and attitude towards violence) but you
included another indicator in your analysis (social independence) so I do not
really know where you got this other indicator from. 
Results, Discussion and conclusion : OK
These are the few suggestions that I came up with after reading through the
manuscript.
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Is the study design appropriate to answer the research question (including the use
of appropriate controls), and are the conclusions supported by the evidence
presented?
Yes
Are the methods sufficiently described to allow the study to be repeated?
No
Is the use of statistics and treatment of uncertainties appropriate?
Yes
Is the presentation of the work clear?
Yes
Are the images in this manuscript (including electrophoretic gels and blots) free
from apparent manipulation?
Yes