Contraceptive Use and Risk of Unintended Pregnancy Among Females in the United States: Trends and Characteristics Between 2019 and 2022
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe article present the problem of women's contraceptive use in the USA during the Covid-19 pandemic and the risc of the unintende pregnancy. This work contain empirical data and shows the stad of the problem. The autor describes the materials and methods and results and gives some discussions' remarks. The article is well structured ans written in clear academic language.
Author Response
October 29, 2025
Dear Editor,
Enclosed is our revised manuscript with highlighted changes entitled “Contraceptive Use and Risk of Unintended Pregnancy Among Females in the United States: Trends and Characteristics between 2019 and 2022” for review and assessment in Societies. Please note the following responses/revisions/comments:
Reviewer 1 Comments:
- The article present the problem of women's contraceptive use in the USA during the Covid-19 pandemic and the risc of the unintende pregnancy. This work contain empirical data and shows the stad of the problem. The autor describes the materials and methods and results and gives some discussions' remarks. The article is well structured ans written in clear academic language.
Response: We sincerely thank Reviewer 1 for their support, we are very grateful.
We thank Reviewers and the Editorial office for giving us the opportunity to improve our paper and resubmit our work.
Yours sincerely,
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThank you for submitting this paper. I think the topic is important, particularly with regards to contraceptive trends as they relate to the COVID-19 pandemic. Please find my comments below.
Introduction
Line 39 - “latter group may particularly BE at risk” (be is missing)
Line 42 - Please cite the two recent studies at the end of this sentence
Between the paragraph that starts on line 46 (“Approximately 60-65%…) and your Study Aim and Rationale, please indicate why the limitations of the two studies you cite are consequential.
Your rationale for your study reads a bit unclear to me. Your abstract emphasizes how little is known about the impact of the pandemic on contraceptive use. But in your rationale section, you seem to mention the pandemic as a side consideration. Is your focus on producing more recent data, or showing the impact of the pandemic? Please clarify.
Results
The formatting of your tables makes them very hard to read. Please try to make all column labels and values 1 row
Discussion
- I think it would be meaningful to contextualize some of your findings around race/ethnicity and increases with sterilization with histories of forced/coerced sterilization of Black and Latina populations in the United States
- Throughout the manuscript, you refer to the potential impact of the Dobbs decision. Do you have a sense of when the BRFSS data was collected in relation to the Dobbs decision? I think if you are going to draw conclusions around that, this information would be important since they took place in the same year.
Author Response
October 29, 2025
Dear Editor,
Enclosed is our revised manuscript with highlighted changes entitled “Contraceptive Use and Risk of Unintended Pregnancy Among Females in the United States: Trends and Characteristics between 2019 and 2022” for review and assessment in Societies. Please note the following responses/revisions/comments:
Response: We sincerely thank Reviewer 1 for their support, we are very grateful.
Reviewer 2 Comments:
- Thank you for submitting this paper. I think the topic is important, particularly with regards to contraceptive trends as they relate to the COVID-19 pandemic. Please find my comments below. Introduction
- Line 39 - “latter group may particularly BE at risk” (be is missing)
Response: We thank Reviewer 2 for their support for this article, and their close attention to detail – COMPLETED.
- Line 42 - Please cite the two recent studies at the end of this sentence
Response: We thank Reviewer 2 for their close attention to detail – COMPLETED.
- Between the paragraph that starts on line 46 (“Approximately 60-65%…) and your Study Aim and Rationale, please indicate why the limitations of the two studies you cite are consequential.
Response: We thank Reviewer 2 for this suggestion, which improves our paper – COMPLETED.
- Your rationale for your study reads a bit unclear to me. Your abstract emphasizes how little is known about the impact of the pandemic on contraceptive use. But in your rationale section, you seem to mention the pandemic as a side consideration. Is your focus on producing more recent data, or showing the impact of the pandemic? Please clarify.
Response: We thank Reviewer 2 for this comment. We hope to provide more recent data and also illuminate any changes during the pandemic. We have revised our wording to reflect this – COMPLETED.
- Results - The formatting of your tables makes them very hard to read. Please try to make all column labels and values 1 row
Response: We thank Reviewer 2 for this suggestion – COMPLETED.
- Discussion - I think it would be meaningful to contextualize some of your findings around race/ethnicity and increases with sterilization with histories of forced/coerced sterilization of Black and Latina populations in the United States
Response: We thank Reviewer 2 for this suggestion that improves our paper, we are very grateful. We have added several sentences to contextualize the findings around race/ethnicity as highlighted in our discussion section – COMPLETED.
- Throughout the manuscript, you refer to the potential impact of the Dobbs decision. Do you have a sense of when the BRFSS data was collected in relation to the Dobbs decision? I think if you are going to draw conclusions around that, this information would be important since they took place in the same year.
Response: Yes, the Dobbs decision was approximately June 2022. The 2021 BRFSS data were collected before Dobbs, but the 2022 BRFSS data include responses both before and after the Dobbs decision spanning from January 2022 to February 2023. We have included this in our discussion. We thank Reviewer 2 for this suggestion that improves our paper, we are very grateful – COMPLETED.
We thank Reviewers and the Editorial office for giving us the opportunity to improve our paper and resubmit our work.
Yours sincerely,
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
