Public response to government alerts saves lives during Russian invasion of Ukraine.

ABSTRACT: War is the cause of tremendous human suffering. To reduce such harm, governments have developed tools to alert civilians of imminent threats. Whether these systems are effective remains largely unknown. We study the introduction of an innovative smartphone application that notifies civilians of impending military operations developed in coordination with the Ukrainian government after the Russian invasion. We leverage quasi-experimental variation in the timing of more than 3,000 alerts to study civilian sheltering behavior, using high-frequency geolocation pings tied to 17 million mobile devices, 60% of the connected population in Ukraine. We find that, overall, civilians respond sharply to alerts, quickly seeking shelter. These rapid postalert changes in population movement attenuate over

SUBMITTER: Van Dijcke D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10160968 | biostudies-literature | 2023 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature