TY - JOUR A1 - Tjaden, Jasper A1 - Haarmann, Esther A1 - Savaskan, Nicolai T1 - Experimental evidence on improving COVID-19 vaccine outreach among migrant communities on social media JF - Scientific reports N2 - Studies from several countries suggest that COVID-19 vaccination rates are lower among migrants compared to the general population. Urgent calls have been made to improve vaccine outreach to migrants, however, there is limited evidence on effective approaches, especially using social media. We assessed a targeted, low-cost, Facebook campaign disseminating COVID-19 vaccine information among Arabic, Turkish and Russian speakers in Germany (N = 888,994). As part of the campaign, we conducted two randomized, online experiments to assess the impact of the advertisement (1) language and (2) depicted messenger (government authority, religious leader, doctor or family). Key outcomes included reach, click-through rates, conversion rates and cost-effectiveness. Within 29 days, the campaign reached 890 thousand Facebook users. On average, 2.3 individuals accessed the advertised COVID-19 vaccination appointment tool for every euro spent on the campaign. Migrants were 2.4 (Arabic), 1.8 (Russian) and 1.2 (Turkish) times more likely to click on advertisements translated to their native language compared to German-language advertisements. Furthermore, findings showed that government representatives can be more successful in engaging migrants online compared to other messengers, despite common claims of lower trust in government institutions among migrants. This study highlights the potential of tailored, and translated, vaccination campaigns on social media for reaching migrants who may be left out by traditional media campaigns. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-20340-2 SN - 2045-2322 VL - 12 PB - Springer Nature CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Tjaden, Jasper A1 - Gninafon, Horace T1 - Raising awareness about the risk of irregular migration BT - quasi‐experimental evidence from Guinea JF - Population and development review N2 - In response to mounting evidence of harm inflicted on irregular migrants along their journeys from West Africa to Europe, international organizations, civil society organizations, and governments have scaled up campaigns as a tool for raising awareness about the risks of irregular migration. Campaigns aim to counter misinformation by smugglers and facilitate safe migration decisions. Despite the growing number of interventions, there is limited empirical evidence on the impact and effectiveness of such campaigns. Based on a difference-in-difference design, this study investigates the effect of a mobile cinema and community discussion intervention on the perceptions, knowledge, and intentions of potential irregular migrants in Northern Guinea in 2019. The results show that potential migrants who participated in events were significantly more likely to show awareness gains and less likely to report high intentions to migrate irregularly. While the relative importance of risk perceptions and their impact on migration flows remain unclear, the findings provide evidence supporting the assumption that risk awareness can be a relevant factor in the decision-making process of potential irregular migrants. While campaigns may be an effective tool in certain contexts, effect sizes highlight the need for policymakers to keep realistic expectations. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/padr.12468 SN - 0098-7921 SN - 1728-4457 VL - 48 IS - 3 SP - 745 EP - 766 PB - Population Council CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Tjaden, Jasper T1 - Risky journeys BT - risk and decision‐making among potential irregular migrants in Senegal and Guinea JF - International migration N2 - In response to well-documented harms inflicted on irregular migrants attempting to travel from West Africa to Europe, various actors have scaled up information interventions to counter misinformation by smuggling networks and facilitate safe migration decisions. Many interventions include information on the potential dangers involved in migration. However, there is a striking lack of empirical evidence assessing a key assumption of campaign effectiveness, that is the relationship between risk perceptions and the decision to migrate irregularly. This study contributes an empirical account based on two independently collected surveys in Senegal and Guinea. Consistent with rational choice theories on migration decisions under uncertainty, the results suggest that higher risk perceptions are consistently and strongly associated with reduced intentions to migrate irregularly. Yet, the explanatory power of risk perceptions depends on context and is generally less important than structural and socio-economic factors. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/imig.13003 SN - 0020-7985 SN - 1468-2435 VL - 61 IS - 2 SP - 212 EP - 225 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ndashimye, Felix A1 - Hebie, Oumarou A1 - Tjaden, Jasper T1 - Effectiveness of WhatsApp for measuring migration in follow-up phone surveys BT - lessons from a mode experiment in two low-income countries during COVID contact restrictions JF - Social science computer review N2 - Phone surveys have increasingly become important data collection tools in developing countries, particularly in the context of sudden contact restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. So far, there is limited evidence regarding the potential of the messenger service WhatsApp for remote data collection despite its large global coverage and expanding membership. WhatsApp may offer advantages in terms of reducing panel attrition and cutting survey costs. WhatsApp may offer additional benefits to migration scholars interested in cross-border migration behavior which is notoriously difficult to measure using conventional face-to-face surveys. In this field experiment, we compared the response rates between WhatsApp and interactive voice response (IVR) modes using a sample of 8446 contacts in Senegal and Guinea. At 12%, WhatsApp survey response rates were nearly eight percentage points lower than IVR survey response rates. However, WhatsApp offers higher survey completion rates, substantially lower costs and does not introduce more sample selection bias compared to IVR. We discuss the potential of WhatsApp surveys in low-income contexts and provide practical recommendations for field implementation. KW - WhatsApp KW - survey mode KW - migration KW - Covid KW - phone Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/08944393221111340 SN - 0894-4393 SN - 1552-8286 PB - Sage CY - Thousand Oaks ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Khalil, Samir A1 - Kohler, Ulrich A1 - Tjaden, Jasper T1 - Is there a rural penalty in language acquisition? BT - evidence from Germany's refugee allocation policy JF - Frontiers in sociology N2 - Emerging evidence has highlighted the important role of local contexts for integration trajectories of asylum seekers and refugees. Germany's policy of randomly allocating asylum seekers across Germany may advantage some and disadvantage others in terms of opportunities for equal participation in society. This study explores the question whether asylum seekers that have been allocated to rural areas experience disadvantages in terms of language acquisition compared to those allocated to urban areas. We derive testable assumptions using a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) which are then tested using large-N survey data (IAB-BAMF-SOEP refugee survey). We find that living in a rural area has no negative total effect on language skills. Further the findings suggest that the "null effect" is the result of two processes which offset each other: while asylum seekers in rural areas have slightly lower access for formal, federally organized language courses, they have more regular exposure to German speakers. KW - refugees KW - allocation policies KW - rural KW - language acquisition KW - intergroup KW - contacts KW - language courses KW - integration Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2022.841775 SN - 2297-7775 VL - 7 PB - Frontiers Media CY - Lausanne ER -