Title: What do outlet’s and provider’s characteristics mean for family planning consumers? A
comparative study of Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda
Version: 1 Date: 09 Aug 2023
Reviewer's report:
Authors presented the trends of FP clients as per type of service outlets in three sub-Saharan
African countries with new insights. Clarifications on the following could improve the clarity
of the article.
Introduction:
- Please consider adding a brief explanation on the CM4FP on the main text. Referring to CM4FP
in introduction would confuse some of the readers.
- "Nigeria being the richest, Uganda the poorest, and Kenya falling into the lower-middle-income
category " Please specify that authors used World Bank data (please detail what type of data
of which year).
- modern methods of FP: please define which methods authors considered as "modern methods."
Measures:
- Please specify what the authors mean "facility" (e.g., "Dependent variable: the primary
outcome of interest is the number of family planning clients reported by the facility per week"),
Results:
- Please specify which type of outlets were included in the category of "pharmacy" and "non-
pharmacy" (i.e.   are drug shops, medical centres, clinics, Health Centres and Hospitals are
categorized as "non-pharmacies"?)
- FP services: Please detail what type of FP services were offered in the main text and with
the order of frequency per each country. If plural services were offered, what were the most
common combinations of the services? Does it correspond to the most recent DHS results on
contraceptive use and method mix of each country?
Discussion
- Please elaborate on this sentence: "while preventing the excess of contraceptive methods in
Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda’s public health facilities" Adding references to substantiate your
statement would be ideal.
- consulting or counseling: In the Figures, authors use the word "counseling," but they use
"consulting" in the main text. The reviewer assumes that the word "consulting" was used in to
mean "counseling." If my assumption is correct, please be consistent in using "counseling."
- suggested for revision: "The results in Kenya suggest that if the decorator catches the eye of
advertisements for FP services," This is another example of discrepancy between the word used
in the Figure and the main text. The reviewer believes that the word advertisements was used
here to mean "FP signs" as shown on the Figures. Please be consistent and inclusion of what
FP signs entails in the earlier section of this manuscript would also clarify the meaning here,
e.g. FP signs would include advertisement by the manufacturer including sign board, balloons,
or pamphlets, etc.
There are some minor points that the reviewer would appreciate it if authors could take into
account:
- DHS uses the term Women of Reproductive Age (WRA) as opposed to women in childbearing
age.
- The order in which each country is written: Unless they are written in the order of numerical
value, the reviewer suggest that the authors write three countries in the alphabetical order, as
in the title of this article.
- The readers of this article would include those who are interested in FP. Please revisit the
terms you used in the manuscript, such as "contraceptive prevalence use rate " or " women in
partnership," which are not standard terms used in the existing literature.
- as follow should be as follows (with an "s")