If you rate the lives of unborn children equally, then ITNs probably wins out, because providers also recommend that pregnant women sleep under bed nets, but, at least according to GiveWell, SMC doesn’t extend to pregnant women. A Cochrane review found that ITN use by pregnant women reduced placental malaria by ~38% and maternal anaemia by ~23% in first or second pregnancies. Because malaria in pregnancy accounts for a large share of stillbirths and neonatal deaths, and ITNs substantially reduce placental malaria, including these effects could increase the estimated impact of bed nets by around half again.
It costs AMF 2.67 k$ (= 2/3*4*10^3) to increase population by 1 if you are right this cost is 2⁄3 (= 1/(1 + 0.5)) of its cost to save a life. That is 3.12 (= 2.67*10^3/855) times GiveWell’s estimate for the cost to save a life via dietary salt modification, and GiveWell identified Resolve to Save Lives (RSL) as a promising charity that could absorb funding to implement this. So I am thinking RSL is one of the most cost-effective ways to increase human-years.
Overall, we estimate that it costs about $855 to avert a death via dietary salt modification in China and India, and the intervention is about 14 times as cost-effective as spending on unconditional cash transfers. However, this is a preliminary estimate that we plan to refine with additional work.
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We have identified one charity that is seeking funding to implement this type of intervention, Resolve to Save Lives. We have not researched other potential implementing organizations. Based on unpublished conversations with Resolve to Save Lives, we believe they may have the capacity to use several times more than the $9.7M modeled in our early-stage cost-effectiveness analysis, and that the specific program we fund would probably not occur without GiveWell support.
Great post, Zack! Strongly upvoted.
It costs AMF 2.67 k$ (= 2/3*4*10^3) to increase population by 1 if you are right this cost is 2⁄3 (= 1/(1 + 0.5)) of its cost to save a life. That is 3.12 (= 2.67*10^3/855) times GiveWell’s estimate for the cost to save a life via dietary salt modification, and GiveWell identified Resolve to Save Lives (RSL) as a promising charity that could absorb funding to implement this. So I am thinking RSL is one of the most cost-effective ways to increase human-years.