Is there a reason financial burden was only calculated for lead? This seems very applicable to alcohol and tobacco (as well as others on the list) which have studies (like ones I mentioned) that quantify things like lost productivity, income displacement, individual and societal healthcare costs, etc?
(not saying it would have changed GiveWell’s prioritization, but it seems like relevant info)
In an ideal world, we would have included financial burden for tobacco in these rough calculations (which were mostly intended to narrow down what we’d focus on in our initial foray into public health regulation grants). But essentially, the last line of your response is the answer: because we value children’s lives so highly, we expected that incorporating the financial burden of tobacco use would not be enough for us to prioritize it over lead. Lead specifically affects young children, and the gap in estimated spend per unit of burden ($0.07 for lead versus $0.24 for tobacco) is large. If we were doing a deeper investigation of tobacco policy as a possible funding area, we would aim to more thoroughly account for its harms.
Thanks for those links; very interesting.
Is there a reason financial burden was only calculated for lead? This seems very applicable to alcohol and tobacco (as well as others on the list) which have studies (like ones I mentioned) that quantify things like lost productivity, income displacement, individual and societal healthcare costs, etc?
(not saying it would have changed GiveWell’s prioritization, but it seems like relevant info)
Hi, J.T.,
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you!
In an ideal world, we would have included financial burden for tobacco in these rough calculations (which were mostly intended to narrow down what we’d focus on in our initial foray into public health regulation grants). But essentially, the last line of your response is the answer: because we value children’s lives so highly, we expected that incorporating the financial burden of tobacco use would not be enough for us to prioritize it over lead. Lead specifically affects young children, and the gap in estimated spend per unit of burden ($0.07 for lead versus $0.24 for tobacco) is large. If we were doing a deeper investigation of tobacco policy as a possible funding area, we would aim to more thoroughly account for its harms.
Best,
Miranda