Reviewer's report
Title:Does Korea have hidden female smokers? Smoking rates according to
self-reported surveys versus biological markers
Version:4Date:18 August 2014
Reviewer: Sun Kim
Reviewer's report:
Although the manuscript provides valuable information on the characteristics of
Korean women who are more likely to underreport their smoking, it cannot be
accepted in its current state because it has many flaws. First, the introduction
lacks information about the strong gender-based social norms toward smoking in
Korea. Second, the method sections is not clearly described. The authors use
Korea and South Korea interchangeably. Please be consistent with either Korea
or South Korea. In addition, the authors erroneously assert that the current work
is the first one reporting hidden female smokers in Korea. The first study was
done by Jung-Choi et al. (2012) that was cited in this paper. Above all, the
manuscript is not suitable for publication unless it is extensively edited. For
details, please see below.
Title:
Please consider changing the title to something like this: Discrepancies in
smoking rates between self-reports and urinary cotinine levels: A case of women
in Korea.
Abstract:
1. The first sentence is somewhat misleading given that Korea is a developed
country.
2. Line 24, change “that” to “those (i.e., data)”
3. Lines 25-27, the sentence is not clear. Please consider revising.
4. Line 28, please delete, “In addition” because a chi-square must be conducted
in order to compare smoking rates between self-reports and urine cotinine levels.
5. Lines 33-34, please consider revising the sentence. For example, “The rates of
smoking among women 7.1% based on self-reports and 18.2% by urinary
cotinine tests, and the rates for men were 47.8% and 55.1%, respectively.
6. The negative predictive value for men was lower than that for women. Is this
correct?
7. One single study cannot confirm but only supports the notion that hidden
female smokers exist in Korea.
8. Lines 40-41. Please revise the sentence using “although the difference was
steadily decreasing.”
Background:
Lines 50-51, please delete with regard to smoking because they are redundant
given that the words, “This gender difference” refers to smoking.
Line 52, please delete the words “in smoking according to gender” because they
are redundant.
Lines 54-55, a grammar error in “the male smoking rate is at least ten times the
female smoking rate.” Also please provide references to support the statement.
Lines 58-59, change a National Health Promotion Law to the National….
Line 59, change smoking rate to smoking rates.
Line 59, please consider using a different verb such as “affected” instead of
“caused”.
Lines 66-69, revise the sentence stating from “Consequently” because the
sentence does not flow from the previous one with the transitional word.
Lines 71-72, please revise the sentence for the flow of reading.
Line 75, change estimate to the past tense and this sentence needs citations.
Lines 80-81, please revise the sentence using correct grammars.
Lines 80-84, A significant discrepancy in Korean female smoking rates between
self-reports and urinary cotinine levels has been previously reported. So, please
state clearly what the main purpose(s) of the study was (were) and what the
study would add to the existing knowledge in the field.
Methods:
The font size should be consistent throughout the main text. Please describe
more how the data were collected. Were there any subjects selected more than
once during the assessment period? Were the participants randomly selected or
conveniently recruited? There was no description of measures used in the study.
The authors should have briefly introduced these measures.
Lines 90-95, please reorganize the whole paragraph by clearly stating how the
sample of the KNHANES was selected and who interviewed participants.
Lines 95-96, please consider deleting the sentence starting from “It was
conducted” because the study included data only collected between 2008 and
2011 during which the survey was conducted annually.
Lines 100-105, this paragraph describing data collection should appear before
Measures.
Lines 101-102, describe how participants were informed about the mobile health
examination. Did the study include any individuals visited the mobile examination
site? Were there any inclusion and exclusion criteria?
Lines 107-108, the definition of current smokers differed from what is widely
adopted in literature. To be current smokers, individuals should have smoked at
least 100 cigarettes in their lifetime and are also currently smoking either every
day or some days.
Results and Discussion sections also contain many grammar errors and unclear
statements and should be revised with editorial help. From now on, I will only
address content issues.
Results
Please consider using self-reported rates instead of official smoking rates.
Please report chi square values on significant differences between self-reports
and urinary cotinine tests for men and women.
Line 137, it seems that the results reported from this line are based on the
self-reported smoking rate. If this is the case, the line should start with a new
paragraph.
Lines 139-141, what is the base of comparing smoking rates between
single-person and two- or more-person households?
Discussion
Lines 183-184, please revise the sentence because it is somewhat misleading
given the study by Jung-Choi (2012) reported the same finding.
Lines 188-190, it is difficult to understand the statements? I am not sure whether
the accuracy differences by gender was larger in South Korea than any other
countries or is larger in some other countries than in South Korea?
Please discuss more about the findings regarding the decreasing rate of
participation in urinary cotinine tests and what may have contributed to the
decrease.