Internet of Things and Big Data Analytics in Preventive Healthcare: A Synthetic Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In this manuscript, the authors analyzed the Scopus database for preventive healthcare regarding the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, and artificial intelligence (AI). The analyses were focused on topic chronologies, journal sources, core publications, geographical distributions, and keyword distributions. They also provided brief discussions on future topics, research challenges, and the merits of their work. This manuscript provides interesting perspectives on the state-of-art of preventive healthcare regarding to newly emerging fields of IoT, big data, and AI. I believe this manuscript is well-written and suitable for publication after addressing minor concerns.

Minor comments.

 

1.     Line 42. The “decision maker”, maker should be in plural form.

2.     Lien 45. Please consider rephrasing as “none of them focused on predictive…” as the “didn’t” makes double negation.

3.     Line 198. Please move the legend of Figure 2 to the bottom of the figure. Also, please replace the figure with a higher resolution version as it is not clear to read.

4.     In section 3.2, pages 10 to 15. Please unify the format of the subtitles, some are bold and some are not.

5.     Line 395. Please add the full name for IoMT as it was never mentioned in the manuscript.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

I think the manuscript is well written and only has a few grammatical issues which I pointed out in the comments.

Author Response

Thank you for the carefull reading of the manuscript

 

1. Line 42. The “decision maker”, maker should be in plural form.

Done

2. Lien 45. Please consider rephrasing as “none of them focused on predictive…” as the “didn’t” makes double negation.

Rephrased

 

3. Line 198. Please move the legend of Figure 2 to the bottom of the figure. Also, please replace the figure with a higher resolution version as it is not clear to read.

Done

 

4. In section 3.2, pages 10 to 15. Please unify the format of the subtitles, some are bold and some are not.

The bold sub-titles represent themes and the non bold categories from Table r.

5. Line 395. Please add the full name for IoMT as it was never mentioned in the manuscript.

Done

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1. This paper offers a comprehensive and interdisciplinary review of the use of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data in preventive healthcare.  Some paragraphs are lengthy and may disrupt the reading flow. You can improve this by using more concise sentence structures and adding transitional phrases between sections. This will make the text more readable and help maintain the reader’s engagement.

2. Information is repeated in several sections of the paper, which can make it feel repetitive. To improve readability, focus on reducing unnecessary repetition and ensure that key information is presented clearly and succinctly.

3. While the paper discusses the potential of IoT and Big Data in preventive healthcare, it could benefit from a more detailed examination of the challenges and limitations of these technologies, such as privacy concerns, data security, and legal and ethical issues.

4. In the section on future research directions, consider offering more specific suggestions on how researchers can further explore these technologies. This could include identifying specific research questions or gaps that need to be addressed.

5. The paper primarily relies on the Scopus database for literature collection, which might lead to the exclusion of relevant studies found in other databases. Future research could consider integrating other databases like Web of Science or PubMed to ensure a more comprehensive review.

6. Although the paper uses the Synthetic Knowledge Synthesis (SKS) method to combine qualitative and quantitative analyses, the qualitative results can appear somewhat subjective. To enhance credibility, provide more data support or a more detailed explanation of the analysis methods when reporting qualitative findings.

Author Response

1. This paper offers a comprehensive and interdisciplinary review of the use of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data in preventive healthcare.  Some paragraphs are lengthy and may disrupt the reading flow. You can improve this by using more concise sentence structures and adding transitional phrases between sections. This will make the text more readable and help maintain the reader’s engagement.

The text has been reviewed and reformulated.

2. Information is repeated in several sections of the paper, which can make it feel repetitive. To improve readability, focus on reducing unnecessary repetition and ensure that key information is presented clearly and succinctly.

The information is  repeated because the topics are treated from medical and informational aspects, but similar (repetitive parts) are explained with other references. However, we have restructured the description of topics and categories to make it more transparent-

3. While the paper discusses the potential of IoT and Big Data in preventive healthcare, it could benefit from a more detailed examination of the challenges and limitations of these technologies, such as privacy concerns, data security, and legal and ethical issues.

The chapter regarding research gaps has been rewritten

4. In the section on future research directions, consider offering more specific suggestions on how researchers can further explore these technologies. This could include identifying specific research questions or gaps that need to be addressed.

Section. 3.5. has been rewriten

5. The paper primarily relies on the Scopus database for literature collection, which might lead to the exclusion of relevant studies found in other databases. Future research could consider integrating other databases like Web of Science or PubMed to ensure a more comprehensive review.

The issues pointed out  were explained in the extended Study strengths and limitations section

5. Although the paper uses the Synthetic Knowledge Synthesis (SKS) method to combine qualitative and quantitative analyses, the qualitative results can appear somewhat subjective. To enhance credibility, provide more data support or a more detailed explanation of the analysis methods when reporting qualitative findings.

The possible subjectivity of qualitative results has been pointed out in study's limitations, and the measures to prevent it are described in the methodology section.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

As a literature review, there is no problem with the research method, and the visualization of the data is also very easy to understand, which is worthy of recognition. However, in terms of conclusion, the conclusions drawn from the classification seem somewhat weak. Can the conclusions of literature analysis be elaborated from the perspectives of different disciplines or application fields, and explain the characteristics or advantages and disadvantages of different countries or regions, so as to enable readers from more countries to understand.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Please make appropriate corrections to the English wording errors, especially the keyword terms mentioned in the tables and classification descriptions.

Author Response

As a literature review, there is no problem with the research method, and the visualization of the data is also very easy to understand, which is worthy of recognition. However, in terms of conclusion, the conclusions drawn from the classification seem somewhat weak. Can the conclusions of literature analysis be elaborated from the perspectives of different disciplines or application fields, and explain the characteristics or advantages and disadvantages of different countries or regions, so as to enable readers from more countries to understand.

 

The SKS analysis has already been done from the medical as well as from computer science/ICT points of view, which is expressed in different categories in Table 3. The SKS analysis has been done on more than 2000 publications from 72 countries so it is not reasonable to analyse country's specific  advantages or disadvantages  of using BigData and IoT in preventive medicine

 

Please make appropriate corrections to the English wording errors, especially the keyword terms mentioned in the tables and classification descriptions.

 

Done

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The subject of Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data in preventative healthcare is extremely pertinent, considering the continuous digital revolution in the healthcare industry. The study provides a comprehensive analysis of the current body of research, encompassing several facets of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data in the healthcare field. This establishes a solid basis for the research. Certain portions might be enhanced by providing greater clarity:

1. Although the study contains a substantial amount of data, there is room for improvement in terms of its presentation. It is advisable to use additional visual aids, such as tables and graphs, to enhance the clarity and accessibility of the data.

2. Ensure that the vocabulary employed throughout the document remains uniform. For instance, if you mention "preventive healthcare" in one part, it is advisable to consistently use the term "preventative medicine" in another portion, unless there is a clear justification for using a different term. The specified line number is 235.

3. The implications of the findings in Section 3 warrant additional investigation, particularly regarding their practical implementation in real-world healthcare environments.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Carefully proofread the manuscript to rectify any grammatical flaws and enhance its readability.

Author Response

Although the study contains a substantial amount of data, there is room for improvement in terms of its presentation. It is advisable to use additional visual aids, such as tables and graphs, to enhance the clarity and accessibility of the data.

We believe that 4 graphs and 3 tables are enough for the visual presentation of the data in the article.

 

1. Ensure that the vocabulary employed throughout the document remains uniform. For instance, if you mention "preventive healthcare" in one part, it is advisable to consistently use the term "preventative medicine" in another portion, unless there is a clear justification for using a different term. The specified line number is 235.

Done

3. The implications of the findings in Section 3 warrant additional investigation, particularly regarding their practical implementation in real-world healthcare environments.

In the present article, we have focused more on the computer and medical aspects. For an in-depth investigation of practical implementations in the real world, we think it would be appropriate to write a new article on this topic.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

    This paper explores the topics of IoT and its applications in healthcare. However, as a systematic literature review, it only references the Scopus database, which is the central issue in this study. Therefore, it is up to the editor to decide whether this paper meets the essential criteria for acceptance.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank you for your comment. However, we didn't perform a systematic review but a synthetic knowledge synthesis of all retrieved publications. Scopus is the largest bibliographic database; it covers almost all WoS source titles and a few thousand more, as well as all PubMed-indexed publications. We added some sentences pointing out those facts to the Methodology sections, coloured in green.