Factors Influencing the Health of Cities: Panel Data from 22 Cities in Taiwan

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper ‘Factors influencing the health of cities: panel data from 22 cities in Taiwan’ concerns the aspect of health in selected Taiwanese cities, evaluated based on selected indices. The article meets the requirements of scientific work and should be proceeded to further publication stages.

Below are my remarks and recommendations related to the paper.

 

Introduction

Although the review of bibliography is well conducted and the authors precisely indicate the gaps in the studies related to this problem, there is no clearly defined goal of the paper. Please, summarize in two-three sentences the main problem which is discussed in the article.

 

Results

There has been many studies related to health problems in municipal areas but they have mainly been focused on climate adaptation plans. I am surprised that direct climate issues (such as indices related to urban heat island) have not been included in the analysis, as local climate conditions in densely built up urban areas (increase in air temperature, more intensive heat waves, changes in humidity, limitations in wind speed, etc.) significantly impact human health. In typical elaborations concerning climate adaptation plans (which also include health issues), the aspects which are presented in this article are defined as ‘adaptation potential’ and are supported by analysis of climate diagnosis. Green spaces, mentioned in the paper’, not only positively impact air quality but also mitigate negative weather influence.

As the authors do not include climate problems in their analysis, I suggest adding information about climate influence to the Limitations sections.

 

Conclusions

Sentences informing about numbers and the comparison to other studies (such as ‘The study's output item, the crude mortality rate among healthy city development indicators, stood at 6.71‰, which was lower than the global average of 8.15‰’) should be placed in Discussion section.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses below and the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted/in track changes in the re-submitted files.

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper ‘Factors influencing the health of cities: panel data from 22 cities in Taiwan’ concerns the aspect of health in selected Taiwanese cities, evaluated based on selected indices. The article meets the requirements of scientific work and should be proceeded to further publication stages.

Below are my remarks and recommendations related to the paper.

Comments 1:

Introduction

Although the review of bibliography is well conducted and the authors precisely indicate the gaps in the studies related to this problem, there is no clearly defined goal of the paper. Please, summarize in two-three sentences the main problem which is discussed in the article.

Response 1: Thank you for pointing this out. I agree with this comment. Therefore, the study objectives have been added to Section 1: Introduction. [This change is located on page 3, at the end of the second-to-last paragraph.]

Comments 2:

Results

There has been many studies related to health problems in municipal areas but they have mainly been focused on climate adaptation plans. I am surprised that direct climate issues (such as indices related to urban heat island) have not been included in the analysis, as local climate conditions in densely built up urban areas (increase in air temperature, more intensive heat waves, changes in humidity, limitations in wind speed, etc.) significantly impact human health. In typical elaborations concerning climate adaptation plans (which also include health issues), the aspects which are presented in this article are defined as ‘adaptation potential’ and are supported by analysis of climate diagnosis. Green spaces, mentioned in the paper’, not only positively impact air quality but also mitigate negative weather influence.

As the authors do not include climate problems in their analysis, I suggest adding information about climate influence to the Limitations sections.

Response 2: Thank you for pointing this out. Local climate conditions (e.g., temperature, heat waves, humidity variations) and climate change have been included in Section 4.1: Limitations. Please refer to the sentence starting with 'Secondly,…' for details. [This change is located on page 10, line 7 of this section.]

Comments 3:

Conclusions

Sentences informing about numbers and the comparison to other studies (such as ‘The study's output item, the crude mortality rate among healthy city development indicators, stood at 6.71‰, which was lower than the global average of 8.15‰’) should be placed in Discussion section.

Response 3: Thank you for pointing this out. Thank you for pointing this out. The discussion relating to crude mortality rate in the Conclusion section has been deleted. Please see the first paragraph of Section 4: Discussion for details. [This change is located on page 8.]

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear author,

 

In general, Your paper is of fine quality, but I have some concerns:

1. What are Your contributions to this manuscript? It seems that You did a statistical analysis of some generally available data. Maybe some research questions or hypotheses should be stated. This is the part You should enhance at most.

2. Provide the graphs, illustrations, or pictures of some of the results presented in Tables to emphasize the major results You obtained.

3. Can the AHP method be applied in at least one part of Your research?

https://doi.org/10.3390/math9040304

4. There should be stated reasons for equations (1) and (2) that can be applied in this manuscript.

5. The results You obtained should be connected with some previous research papers.

6. Paper layout should be stated at the end of the Introduction.

7. The Reference part should be enhanced with references from the 2020s.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses below and the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted/in track changes in the re-submitted files.

Dear author,

In general, your paper is of fine quality, but I have some concerns:

Comments 1: What are Your contributions to this manuscript? It seems that You did a statistical analysis of some generally available data. Maybe some research questions or hypotheses should be stated. This is the part You should enhance at most.

Response 1: Thank you for pointing this out. I agree with this comment. Therefore, the research contribution and objectives of this manuscript have been added to Section 1: Introduction. [This change is located on page 3, at the end of the second-to-last paragraph.]

Comments 2: Provide the graphs, illustrations, or pictures of some of the results presented in Tables to emphasize the major results You obtained.

Response 2: Thank you for the comments. This study has included one figure and three tables to illustrate the main results.

Comments 3: Can the AHP method be applied in at least one part of Your research? https://doi.org/10.3390/math9040304

Response 3: Thank you for the comments. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)  is well-suited for multi-criteria decision-making problems, aiding decision-makers in selecting optimal solutions when multiple choices and criteria are involved. In contrast, Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) is employed for technical efficiency analysis, utilising input and output variables to establish a frontier production function model that evaluates the technical efficiency of production units. The two methods differ significantly in both their approaches and areas of application.

Comments 4: There should be stated reasons for equations (1) and (2) that can be applied in this manuscript.

Response 4: Thank you for the comments. The rationale is detailed in Section 2.1: SFA Method, where the Cobb-Douglas stochastic frontier model proposed by Coelli et al. (2005) [ref. 27] is applied.

Comments 5: The results You obtained should be connected with some previous research papers.

Response 5: Thank you for the comments. The association between the results of this study and prior relevant research has been discussed in Section 4: Discussion.

Comments 6: Paper layout should be stated at the end of the Introduction.

Response 6: Thank you for the comments. The layout of this manuscript has been added to the last paragraph of Section 1: Introduction. This manuscript is divided into five main sections. [This change is located on page 3, in the last paragraph.]

Comments 7: The Reference part should be enhanced with references from the 2020s.

Response 7: Thank you for the comments. This study cites a total of 22 references from recent years (2019–2024), including three from 2020. The paper mentioned in Reviewer’s comment #3 has been included in Section 1: Introduction [This change is located on page 2, at the end of the first paragraph], and a new reference [7] has been added.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear author,

 

You have addressed the majority of my questions regarding this manuscript. Thank You.

 

Kind regards.