MALAMA: Cultivating Food Sovereignty through Backyard Aquaponics with Native Hawaiian Families

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Overall, I think this article makes an important contribution to support more of this work in the future.  I see this as making an important contribution for considering potentially scaling such a program up, and/or continuing to offer it in the future.

A few minor suggestions:

Formatting at line 36 went to right justification (which is an easy fix)

Introduction - I liked the emphasis on the impacts of colonization and then the section that emphasized the resilience and strengths of the people.  I understand pointing to the negative statistics about diabetes, etc. but wondered if the community would like that being shared about them.  Did members of the community review and participate in the writing of the paper?  The next part of the intro after the deficits - "their strengths" seems to hang there (as a reader I wanted to know "what strengths" right away even thought they were described in the next section).

I was a bit confused by the order of the article.  I was thinking that the methods would be described before the findings and discussion.   Perhaps I am unaware of the order of the various section for this journal?  I thought it might be helpful to include a table of the different methods for data collection before reading about them.  I was looking for the detailed methods and analysis plan before reading the results and discussion but did see it after that section

A little more detail about the qualitative data analysis might be helpful.  Were two reviewers in place?  Something in the text made me think there were, but I wasn't totally clear on that.  

I liked the description of the partnership, and wondered if there was more from literature that was used to develop the material for the workshops.  I wondered if more detail could be provided about the workshops (even in an appendix).  As well, in the discussion wondered if there were more comparisons to the literature.

I also wonder if doing this type of program might be an ongoing community practice rather than simply offering the program for longer?  Might the groups continue to meet on their own after the program is complete with supports from community?

Overall, this is an interesting article that I believe would make an important contribution. 

Author Response

Please see attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for the opportunity to review this manuscript. Overall, this manuscript is promising, however, it seems as if there are significant pieces of the manuscript missing or in the wrong places which I am attributing to a potential copy-paste error (that made this manuscript quite difficult to read). First, the methods section is inserted in the document in what appears to be the middle of the discussion section and there are missing parts of the methods and discussion sections. It also appears as if the References section does not align with the in-text citations. Other than these substantial errors, the paper is well written and adds to the literature in this area. Please see below for more specific feedback.  

 

Here is some additional feedback:

Consider dividing paragraph 1 into 2 paragraphs starting at line 32 for flow. Otherwise, the Introduction is well written and provides a sufficient rationale for the program.

Could you please include more specific research questions/aims to guide this paper and analysis.

 

Methods (starting at line 236)

Please provide information about the type of qualitative analysis used.

What mixed method design was used? This seems to be a multi-method study as the quantitative and qualitative data were not integrated. Consider integrating the data if you’d like to use a mixed methods approach. As a small sample size was anticipated, it might be helpful to include how the qualitative data expand/compare/contrast/support the quantitative data presented (integrating the two strands).

 

Results (line 93)

The term “attrition” is somewhat misleading as some participants missed sessions. Please revise this to discuss attendance at each session. For example, how many families attended at least 5 sessions? That might be more helpful to understand the dosage/attendance.

With such a small sample size, are the methods used appropriate for quantitative analyses? Please provide additional justification for the methods used with such a small sample size.

How was food intake measured? Did you only measure fruit, vegetables, and fish? If so, please provide a rationale for these three food types. The references do not align with the measures described. Please also describe why some of the data you collected is not presented in this manuscript.   

Line 162: could you please provide a definition for ma’a?

Were you able to obtain feedback from facilitators/peer mentors about the feasibility of the program? Would be helpful to include and justify the feasibility of this project.

While there are significant limitations in the analysis of quantitative data due to sample size, do any of the qualitative data support health-related changes as a result of the program? This could support the evidence for the program (and justify the use of a mixed methods approach).

Please include a complete discussion section.

Author Response

Please see attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for including all of the suggested revisions as requested and reformatting the manuscript. The changes have greatly improved the manuscript.