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Referee Comments: Referee 2

Posted by PLOS_ONE_Group on 19 May 2008 at 17:46 GMT

Referee 2's Review:

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N.B. These are the comments made by the referee when reviewing an earlier version of this paper. Prior to publication, the manuscript has been revised in light of these comments and to address other editorial requirements.
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1. Consider adding more discussion about 2010 objectives on disparities and implications of these trends for 2020 objectives.
2. Consider dropping the total % change from tables 1 and 2 and including only the annualized % change columns. Both are not needed, and the total column is distracting as the time interval is arbitrary. The text comments on the total % change, which is ok, but this detail is distracting to the point of the tables.
3. RR values are emphasized in the abstract, but not in the tables. Consider adding a RR column of data to Tables 1 and 2. This would better display the SES association that is the main point of the paper.
4. Figure 1 is very nice. It looks like there might be a quadratic term in the line for black women, however. It is not straight on my copy - maybe just a copying distortion.
5. The separation of tables 2 and 3 by the criterion of directionality does not seem necessary to me. This is essentially only one table. If the authors think this is too large, then consider separation by gender instead.
6. Table 4 is complex. This is a secondary point to the paper. I think this could be summarized in text, and the table added as a web appendix, but dropped from the paper.