Behavioral Factors Associated with COVID-19 Risk: A Cross-Sectional Survey in Japan

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The central importance of the article by which I support its publication (if this point is developed and emphasized) is the following point: In order to lead to effective behavior of citizens one must invest smart thinking about the ways through which the citizens can be influenced.

This article rightly points out that excessive brutal direct intervention may be Counter Productive and therefore should be avoided. I highly recommend the article's authors to get 'friendly' with the concept of "epistemic community" and "epistemic authority" through the articles I offer them:

• Lebel, U., "The ‘Immunized Integration’ of Religious-Zionists within Israeli Society", Social Identities 22(6), 2016, 642-660

• Udi Lebel and Batia Ben-Hador (2019) Influence from within? Senior managers from the Religious-Zionist community in the public administration – a phenomenological research, Israel Affairs, 25:3, 488-513

And through a new article's summary that can relate to these articles - incorporate the important findings that this the article contains.

In fact, this will be an intellectual summary of this important article that will highlight its potential: the fact that citizens can be turned as "voluntary" active agents (in this case, health agents) without exerting direct and lasting force on them.

For the whole principle of belonging to an epistemic community (and being part of an epistemic communication) means the fact that there is no need for real and lasting communication but in the art of creating expectations.

Once the citizen directs the expectations expected of him and makes them part of his behaviors independently and voluntarily - there is no need to produce ongoing and aggressive interventions that may undermine the real goal expected of him.

I believe that the inclusion of the empirical data that the article brings under the language of epistemic discourse and the epistemic communities will contribute much to its strength.

The articles I propose to use - although not related to health policy - but to the desire of epistemic communities to create agents who will implement policies in other fields - but the use of what is written in the field of this articles could upgrade and provide an appropriate theoretical framework for the current interesting article.

Author Response

Thank you for this advice. As the due date of revision is so close, we are not sure we fully understand your concept, but we have added the following paragraph.

The findings of this study strongly suggest that we may need a strategy other than legislations to change behaviors of population. Epistemic community, defined as “a network of professionals with recognized expertise and competence in a particular domain and an authoritative claim to policy-relevant knowledge in that domain or issue area [17]”, may play an important role to nudge public to take effective and efficient actions without legitimacy [18]. This epistemic community may also help citizens act according to expectations independently and voluntarily and may reduce the needs of aggressive interventions by the government. Although there is a study that suggests the efficacy of such strategy in a specific field [19], further research is needed to elucidate the effective ways to achieve population health in disaster settings.　(Line 257-266)

Reviewer 2 Report

This manuscript describes identifying behavioral patterns with SARS – COVID -2 infection with a questionnaire-based approach. The study has made several conclusions for the society in japan based on findings and some behavioral interventions. This is an organized manuscript that would be recommended for acceptance. Suggestions to improve this manuscript are listed below:

1. The introduction sections
   1. needs to have additional references for statement in third paragraph
   2. About transmission routes a reference has to be included
   3. References need to be added if any studies of these sort happened across the world
2. In standard oil sample preparation, the value 0,781 needs to be corrected 0.781
3. In Results and discussion section
   1. The data can also be presented in a chart format for a better visualization in addition to table
   2. Can you include headings for COVID and control group in table2?
4. Grammatical errors need to be checked throughout the manuscript
5. Please maintain the reference style format to be consistent for all the references.
   1. Some references do not have full journal name
   2. Some references do not have volume and page numbers
   3. If the reference is obtained in web, an access date is required

Author Response

1. The introduction sections

Thank you for this suggestion. We have added several references in this paragraph, including the transmission routes and preventive measures.

2. In standard oil sample preparation, the value 0,781 needs to be corrected 0.781

 Thank you for this advice, but we could not find the part you have pointed out. We are glad if you teach us which part you have suggested. But we have corrected other typos

3. In Results and discussion section

1. 1. The data can also be presented in a chart format for a better visualization in addition to table

Thank you for this advice. We have added Figure 1 to visualize our findings.

Can you include headings for COVID and control group in table2?

We are sorry for the confusing title of Table 2. This shows OR and ATE of being COVID-19 infection group compared with Control group. We have added the following explanation.

“Odds ratio and average treatment effects of being COVID-19 group are shown.”

4. Grammatical errors need to be checked throughout the manuscript

We have checked grammatical errors again, and have corrected some part including typos.

5. Please maintain the reference style format to be consistent for all the references.

We have revised the Reference so that it contains precise information.