The Role of Social Capital, Sex Communication, and Sex Refusal Self-Efficacy in Sexual Risk Behaviors and HIV Testing among a Diverse Sample of Youth

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I congratulate the authors of this work for its quality and methodological consistency. As a mere suggestion, I would like to include some Latin American articles that could enrich the critical apparatus of the text. 

My only suggestion is that you incorporate some references to articles from the Latin American region to enrich your perspective.

• https://www.redalyc.org/journal/3238/323827303002/html/
• https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/1800/180022344010.pdf 
• https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/112/11230198004.pdf
• https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/292/29213133008.pdf 
• https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/459/45929109004.pdf 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

First of all, thank the authors for their research, since they deal with topics of great relevance and scientific interest. Congratulations on your research.

After reviewing your article, I have no doubts about the relevance of your publication. The only observation I make to you is the recommendation to define on line 46 to which institution the CDC acronyms refer. One question that assails me is about the alpha indicated between parentheses on the indicators (section 2.2. Measures: civic engagement, adult support, etc.) and if this is Cronbach's Alpha. If so, is it the cronbach's alpha that you have obtained? In this case, are they not, except in adult support, very low?

Again, congratulations on your work.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript deals with social capital influences on sexual risk behaviors. 

The topic is relevant to the journal and the main concept contributes to the research field.

However, there are issues for revisions.

• I recommend adding a figure that shows the main research theme and concept in Introduction for readers to figure out the core concept at a glance.
• I recommend inserting paragraphs for main research contributions in Introduction.
• This manuscript should have a distinct research background and method compared to the previous paper (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6715297/).
• Many sections start with subsections without introductory sentences. 
• No Conclusion section.
• No Related Work section; at least, it should contains discussion paragraphs to compare with the state of the art studies.
• For the result section, it should contain the authors' own insights and analytics, not just describing the result itself.
• More recent references are required.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors revised the manuscript based on the previous review.

Thus, I recommend the manuscript for publication.