What is the difference between the deprivationist view and the QALY-equivalent of saving a 5-year old’s life?
It sounds like you’re slightly misunderstanding me. GiveWell’s 2015 estimate said that the value of saving a 5-year old’s life was ~36 QALYs, which is a time-discounted estimate of the number of quality-adjusted years of life the 5-year old will now have. In the 2016 estimate, employees explicitly input how valuable they think it is to save a 5-year old in terms of QALYs—on the spreadsheet, look at the “Bed Nets” tab in the row “DALYs averted per death of an under-5 averted — AMF”. The median value is 8.25, and estimates range from 3 to 26. The highest estimate, 26, is still lower than last year’s estimate of 36, which suggests that none of the employees who filled this out adopt the deprivationist view.
And yeah, I’m was just following you when you said there was a ‘GiveWell view’. I know in your post you explain how it’s a composition of staff views.
Last year GiveWell’s cost-effectiveness estimate used 36 QALYs per life saved, which implies a deprivationist view. That’s not a composite of staff views, that’s the result implied by GiveWell’s reported cost-effectiveness numbers. It now appears that no GiveWell employees (or at least none who contributed to this cost-effectiveness analysis) actually hold a deprivationist view.
I’ve spent 2-3 hours going over GiveWell’s cost-effectiveness spreadsheet, so don’t expect to understand it immediately. GiveWell has a video explaining how the 2015 spreadsheet works. I haven’t much looked at the 2016 spreadsheet but it looks a lot better designed so it shouldn’t take as long to understand.
It sounds like you’re slightly misunderstanding me. GiveWell’s 2015 estimate said that the value of saving a 5-year old’s life was ~36 QALYs, which is a time-discounted estimate of the number of quality-adjusted years of life the 5-year old will now have. In the 2016 estimate, employees explicitly input how valuable they think it is to save a 5-year old in terms of QALYs—on the spreadsheet, look at the “Bed Nets” tab in the row “DALYs averted per death of an under-5 averted — AMF”. The median value is 8.25, and estimates range from 3 to 26. The highest estimate, 26, is still lower than last year’s estimate of 36, which suggests that none of the employees who filled this out adopt the deprivationist view.
Last year GiveWell’s cost-effectiveness estimate used 36 QALYs per life saved, which implies a deprivationist view. That’s not a composite of staff views, that’s the result implied by GiveWell’s reported cost-effectiveness numbers. It now appears that no GiveWell employees (or at least none who contributed to this cost-effectiveness analysis) actually hold a deprivationist view.
Okay. I’ve gone back to GiveWell’s estimates, thanks. They look confusing and complicated, and it seems that quite a bit has changed in the past year.
I’ve spent 2-3 hours going over GiveWell’s cost-effectiveness spreadsheet, so don’t expect to understand it immediately. GiveWell has a video explaining how the 2015 spreadsheet works. I haven’t much looked at the 2016 spreadsheet but it looks a lot better designed so it shouldn’t take as long to understand.