The Influence and Prediction of Built Environment on the Subjective Well-Being of the Elderly Based on Random Forest: Evidence from Guangzhou, China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)

Dear authors,

I am pleased that you have not abandoned the attempt to publish. As I emphasized earlier, the topic is very important due to the increasing problem of the elderly not only in China but also worldwide. I have noticed changes in the text that significantly improve its readability and address the majority of my critical comments. It seems that after these revisions, the text has greatly improved in quality. Nevertheless, I have a few minor suggestions. Here they are:

• In the abstract, I missed solid data regarding the results of the work. It might be worth including some numbers that illustrate the conclusions presented in the abstract.
• I would significantly improve the quality of the figures or include them as supplementary data in full resolution. You can eliminate the scale and north arrow if the same situation is present in all the figures. Additionally, I would prefer to use units in square kilometers (km²) rather than hectares. This applies to Figure 3 and Figure 8.

Author Response

Please see the attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

Congratulations for the work done.  I accept the document in present form

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Congratulations on the work.

The topic discussed is very interesting and necessary, since we increasingly live in more urban and crowded areas and this can have negative consequences for the health of the elderly.

Next I will make some small suggestions.

Introduction

I recommend that you talk briefly about the negative effects that certain characteristics of large cities can have on older people.

Methodology

- Indicate what criteria were followed to determine which questionnaires were validated and which were not.

- It should be indicated whether the older people interviewed were dependent or independent people, since this is an important aspect to consider in the topic discussed.

- Have you controlled the previous status of the participating subjects as well as their family environment or marital status? This is an aspect that may also have a certain impact. That is, how do you know that the results are not influenced by these types of variables? If you have controlled them, include them in the methodology section and comment on them along with the results and discussion, otherwise you should talk about the issue and establish it as a possible limitation or aspect to control in future research.

- In these cases, there may be differences depending on gender. Have you been able to analyse this aspect? If you have controlled it, I encourage you to include this data. Otherwise, they should introduce a small paragraph in the discussion talking about the topic and as a future line of research.

Reviewer 2 Report

The topic of this study is timely and useful in order to promote healthy aging and healthy neighborhood environment. The goal of this study, “ …investigating the determinants influencing the subjective well-being (SWB) of elderly individuals within the neighborhood setting” is also meaningful. In the research design of this study, however, there are several issues that made the readers doubt about the research findings.

One critical issue, among others, is the selection of neighborhood environment factors, in which individual public service facilities as well as building density and NDVI are treated equally. Let alone the fact that the public service facilities are categorized as Shopping (super market, vegetable market, mall), Medical (hospital, drugstore, clinic), Transportation service (subway station, bus station), Tourist attraction (park, scenic spots), and Sports & recreation (gymnasium), where conflicts among each sub-facilities already exist, it is very awkward to add two more factors, such as building density (housing density only) and NDVI that have totally different natures from the ‘public service facilities,’ to compose so-called neighborhood environment factors.

With this fundamentally unstable selection of the neighborhood environment factors, as well as each factor's coverage scale, which go mostly beyond the neighborhood or community level, it is difficult to be logically persuaded by the research findings and their planning implications.

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper submitted for review addresses an important topic related to SWB (Subjective Well-being). The changing natural environment is causing a decline in people's quality of life in the modern world. The authors tackle a significant issue by attempting to quantify the feelings of elderly individuals.

Here are some comments on the text:

The authors mention a questionnaire survey, but there is no information in the paper on how and what data they collected. It appears that the authors have not devoted enough attention to providing a detailed description of the conducted research.

I do not fully understand the need for using the NDVI index in studies of the natural environment. Wouldn't it be simpler to use land cover data? The use of the NDVI index may subjectively assess the extent of natural areas.

Many maps presented in the paper are unclear, for example, Figure 7b, Figures 4-6, Figure 12. The legend is entirely illegible.

On what basis was the impact of satisfaction on neighborhood environment factors determined? Did the authors establish this relationship in some way, or did they only approximate it based on surveys?

The authors did not discuss potential errors stemming from the generalization associated with the lack of GIS analysis of distances from specific public utility buildings. Such generalizations can lead to errors in data interpretation and, consequently, in drawing correct conclusions.

The text contains basic language errors and should be corrected by a native speaker.