Fig. 4

a Change between the number of conflicts during the first half of the outbreak (August 1, 2018–January 31, 2019) vs. the second half of the outbreak (February 1, 2019–July 26, 2019) on a log scale (factor change). Blue dots show the areas that reported transmission. Red dots indicate the areas that are in North Kivu and Ituri but did not report transmission. Green is the rest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Black dots represent the population-weighted mean of conflicts per group which are 2.7 in health zones that reported transmission, 2.04 in health zones in North Kivu and Ituri that did not report transmission, and 1.32 in the rest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Between the initial phase of the outbreak (August 2018–January 2019) and the second phase of the outbreak (February 2019–July 2019), on average, the incidence of conflict events (by day) increased by a factor of 2.75 (Fig. 2a) in health zones that reported transmission (p value < 0.05). Health zones in Ituri and North Kivu that did not report transmission were not statistically significantly different (p value = 0.05017) but on average experienced a doubling in conflict events (factor 2.04). b The relationship between the number of conflicts per 10,000 individuals in the first half of the outbreak (August 2018–January 2019) vs. the second half of the outbreak (February 2019–July 2019). All points that fall above the gray line see an increase in conflict events in the second half of the outbreak. The correlation between the reported incidence of conflict during these two time periods is R² = 0.95 (p value < 0.01, regression line not shown)