Author's response to reviews
Title: A three-source capture-recapture estimate of the number of new HIV
diagnoses in children in France during 2003-2006 with multiple imputation of a
variable of heterogeneous catchability.
Authors:
Vanina Héraud-Bousquet ([email protected])
Florence Lot ([email protected])
Maxime Esvan ([email protected])
Françoise Cazein ([email protected])
Josiane Warszawski ([email protected])
Corinne Laurent ([email protected])
Pascale Bernillon ([email protected])
Anne Gallay ([email protected])
Version: 7 Date: 27 September 2012
Author's response to reviews: see over
Dear Philippa Harris,
Please find enclosed a revised version of our manuscript entitled “A three-source capturerecapture estimate of the number of new HIV diagnoses in children in France during 20032006 with multiple imputation of a variable of heterogeneous catchability”, we would like
to resubmit for publication in BMC Infectious Diseases.
We have provided a response to the reviewer’s comments below in bold italic and have
incorporated tracking changes in a revised manuscript.
We hope that the manuscript is now suitable for publication in BMC Infectious Diseases.
Yours Sincerely
Vanina Héraud-Bousquet
Title: A three-source capture-recapture estimate of the number of new HIV
diagnoses in children in France during 2003-2006 with multiple imputation of a
variable of heterogeneous catchability.
Version: 5 Date: 14 August 2012
Reviewer: Rob van Hest
Reviewer's report:
MS: 1269660426260111
A three-source capture-recapture estimate of the number of new HIV diagnoses
in children in France during 2003-2006 with multiple imputation of a variable of
heterogeneous catchability.
Vanina Héraud-Bousquet, Florence Lot, Maxime Esvan, Françoise Cazein,
Josiane Warszawski, Corinne Laurent, Pascale Bernillon and Anne Gallay
My first comments go to the Editor. When, due to a technical error, comments
are delayed by many months, it may be better to switch off the automatic word
processor. Now I read that my review was recent but it was written 8 months ago,
in December 2011. After BMC causing that considerable delay now I read “As
you already know, we promise a rapid review process, and so we would
appreciate receiving your report by the 15 August 2012“,later even followed by a
reminder, which does not make a serious and professional impression. The delay
caused extra efforts from both authors and reviewer but the word processor
apparently does not know the word “apologise”.
I am the opinion that the manuscript has greatly improved during the revision but
I still have few minor remarks:
R1: the first author does not seem to get my point. I think the objective was “to
estimate the number and rate of new HIV diagnoses”. This also extends to the
last paragraph of the Introduction.
The 2 sentences have been modified in the abstract and in the introduction.
Page 8: CRC does not estimate “by” matching (that is record-linkage or
case-ascertainment), but “after” matching.
The sentence has been corrected.
R24
I would still suggest to write in the last paragraph of page 7 “[16], a STATA
module providing standard three-source capture-recapture analyses without
covariates”. “The latter” makes no sense because there is no first program.
The sentence has been changed accordingly.
Page 7 last sentence: I still read “Regal et Hook in French instead of “Regal and
Hook”.
It has been corrected now.
R26 has not been modified: please insert the abbreviation “CI” in the second
paragraph.
The abbreviation has been added.
R30
The author has not read my suggestion carefully. I suggest to rename the section
“Capture-recapture method – Conditions of application” by “”Limitations and
strengths”.
The section has been renamed “Limitations and strength” as suggested.
Page 11 last paragraph:
I would write in the second sentence "A limited number of common cases were
identified between registers"
I would still write “miss-links or missed links”. Now it seems that missed links
refers to inaccurate links, which is rather the opposite.
The paragraph has been partly rewritten.
I would avoid words as "Nevertheless" and "Moreover".
I would delete the sentence starting with "Nevertheless" as it does not add extra
information.
I think the sentence starting with "Moreover" is a "Result".
I would delete the last sentence starting with "Therefore".
The 2 sentences have been deleted as suggested.
Page 12 Closed population:
I would delete the second sentence because I miss the relation with this
assumption (no in-migration or out-migration during the study).
I would delete "It may be worth mentioning that" as it is spoken and not so much
scientific language
The sentence has been deleted as suggested.
Page 12 Capture homogeneity
Second sentence
Now I am a bit lost: 270 in Table 2 seems to be the lower margin of the 95% CI of
the capture-recapture estimate of models 1-3. Delete this sentence?
We agree with the reviewer that this sentence was not clear enough. This sentence
has been deleted.
Page 13 “Model selection and estimation” (R34): I would delete “Nevertheless, in
our application” in the second paragraph.
The sentence has been corrected.
Page 13 “Estimating missing values”: after “MLE multiple imputation can be
deleted as “MI” has been used before.
Multiple imputation has been replaced with MI.
Page 14: still the name “Van der Heijden” is spelled incorrectly.
The spelling has been corrected.
Page 16:
Completeness
After "....was modified in 2007" please again "microbiologists" instead of
"biologists"
It has been corrected.
Perhaps the authors might consider to insert the explanation about “step E”,
given in the answer in the text, for more clarification to the readers
The explanation about Step E has been added in the text.
In the first column of Table 3 N”hat” is still given in decimals.
It has been corrected.
I repeat an earlier remark in my initial comments that I have again partly
performed an exercise that should have been done by the study supervisors.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests'