Assessing Environmental Health Hazard Awareness for Sustainability: A Survey of Adults in Saudi Arabia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank You for the opportunity to review the manuscript titled: "Assessing Environmental Health Hazard Awareness for Sustainability: A Survey of Adults in Saudi Arabia" for Sustainability.

I only have a couple of suggestions for the respectable authors.

Lines 88-89

The authors state that “…this study aims to assess the current environmental health status and environmental health hazards in the Jazan region of Saudi Arabia”. This is not the case and should be rephrased. The study did not do this but surveyed local inhabitants on their awareness/knowledge/beliefs about environmental hazards. So – not the hazards themselves but people’s opinions on them.

Lines 136-138

Does this disproportion of age groups also mimics the age distribution in the sampled population? This has to do with representativeness of the sample.

Sincerely,

The reviewer

Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Title: Assessing Environmental Health Hazard Awareness for Sustainability: A Survey of Adults in Saudi Arabia

Journal: sustainability

Comments: This study estimated the knowledge of environmental health issues of 817 adults in Saudi Arabia's Jazan region based on a cross-sectional observational study. The results indicated that education level, interest, and gender were as the important influencing factors. Desalinated and drinking Water and air pollution, and public health disturbance pose a more significant environmental health issue. The survey design is valid, and the findings are significant. There are some suggestions based on the descriptions and discussion of this manuscript.

1.    Abstract: The descriptions about the exact results associated with the sociodemographic factors, such as the gender, education levels were lacked in this section. However, its important for the readers to understand the significance of this study. Please added the associated narration.

2.    Keywords: The amount of the keywords is too much, and please minimize the number less than 6.

3.    Introduction: The research statues about the environmental health hazard awareness in Saudi Arabia are lacked in this section. However, its crucial for the readers to understand the necessity for this study, and pleased added the descriptions.

4.    Line 104: The annotations for this formula were missing, and please added.

5.    Section 3.3: The reliability of this questionnaire used in this study just tested among 25 students? It would be inadequate. Hence, please describe the reliability test detailedly to emphasize the rationality of this study.

6.    Line 192: Actually, asbestos is an occupational health issue not an environmental health issue. Hence, please reconsider the associated descriptions.

7.    Table 3: What the relative importance represents?

8.     Line 228-233: The values for RI and real concern in this paragraph were reversed.

9.    Line 237: 1.86.

10. Line 259: The results in this study showed the knowledge and awareness of environmental health hazards are not at low levels (>50% for most of the issues). Hence, please modify the descriptions.

The English Language is good.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This article focuses on assessing knowledge about 16 environmental pollutants among 817 adults in the Jazan region of Saudi Arabia. For this purpose, an online survey was conducted with a total of 817 participants, selected using statistical methods. Although the paper is well structured, there are critical areas that require improvement, which are detailed below:

1. Introduction:

The introduction is insufficient and does not highlight the research gaps that justify the need for this study explicitly. It is recommended that the introduction be expanded to address research gaps and make reference to related work in other countries, even if the context is different. In addition, it would be beneficial to briefly describe the tools used, considering the possibility of creating an additional heading in the theoretical framework.

2. Materials and Methods:

Correct numbering error on line 93: change "3.1. Study design, settings, and population" to "2.1. Study design, settings, and population".

Revise the expression on line 96: "adults>18 years old".

Correct numbering error on line 100: change "3.2. Sampling method and Sample size" to "2.2. Sampling method and Sample size".

Correct numbering error on line 113: change "3.3. Data collection instrument" to "2.3. Data collection instrument".

On line 120 there is an extra space after "people.

In line 126 there is a numbering error and instead of "3.3. Data analysis" it should read "2.4. 

The "Data analysis" section could be described a little more, explaining in which case Student's t-test was chosen and in which case ANOVA.

3. Results:

Table 1 has the page numbers superimposed.

Table 2 is spaced too far apart.

Table 3 has a different style from the previous ones; for example, the font size is different. It would be good to unify.

4. Discussion:

There is little discussion with previous studies. Perhaps if the theoretical framework were expanded as suggested this issue would be resolved.

 It would be good to include a section on the practical implications of this research.

References:

The references do not adhere to the journal's style; kindly ensure the references are corrected to align with the journal's formatting requirements.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

There is no more questions, and it's recommended to be accepted at present version.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We are delighted to receive your positive assessment that our manuscript is appropriate for publication in its current form. Thank you sincerely for your time and expertise in thoroughly reviewing our work and providing thoughtful feedback to enhance the quality of our research. Your encouragement of this study and helpful guidance throughout the review process have been invaluable. We are especially grateful that no further questions or significant changes were recommended at this stage. It is rewarding to know that the aim, methods, results, and discussion met the standards for publication through the iterations guided by your insights. We appreciate your support of novel research that can contribute to the scientific literature and knowledge in this field. Your endorsement of our manuscript for acceptance will help disseminate findings that can hopefully inform efforts to improve environmental health literacy and protective behaviors. Thank you again for recognizing the merit of our work - your approval regarding publication readiness is the highest praise.

Reviewer 3 Report

Good work. I see that all the requested changes have been duly undertaken, except for the correction of the overlapping page line numbers in Table 1 (lines 173-180) and the references. For example, the names of the journals need to be abbreviated and this is not done in any of them. Also, the year of publication should be bolded and a "," and not ";" should be placed in front of it. In addition, the number of the journal should be written in italics. Beware of some references that keep "p" in allusion to pages (e.g., 5 and 9) or "vol." for volume (e.g., 9). I insist that it is important that these two aspects be resolved.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you sincerely for your diligent review and for catching the remaining formatting issues with our references and Table 1. We appreciate you taking the time to ensure proper adherence to the stylistic guidelines before final publication approval. Per your recommendations, we have carefully corrected the reference list so journal titles are now abbreviated appropriately, years bolded, punctuation standardized, and journal issue numbers italicized.

We have also resolved the duplicate line numbering issue in Table 1. Your keen eye and patience have been invaluable in guaranteeing strict accordance to publication standards. We are extremely grateful you persisted in having these final details polished - it truly elevates the quality. Your thoughtful feedback throughout this process has significantly improved our work. We sincerely appreciate the effort you have dedicated as our reviewer, and your insights have enriched our research. It is encouraging to collaborate with dedicated reviewers like yourself who uphold rigorous standards. Please accept our gratitude for your diligence, expertise, and the constructive criticisms that have made this a better manuscript.