The size of the effect makes me wonder if there’s something multiplicative going on. If two independent bad things co-occuring will kill you, then reducing the likelihood of both those things by 30% would reduce the resulting deaths by 51%.
12−0.72 = 0.51
It was three things that needed to co-occur, then 30% reductions would yield a 66% reduction in resulting deaths.
13−0.73=0.66
I think this would generalise somewhat to a more complicated causal landscape, so long as a sizable proportion of the deaths are caused by these multiplicative interactions. This could perhaps explain why the reduction in deaths amount to more than the sum of their parts?
Examples of relevant bad things:
- Malnutrition - Parental illness - Disease - Hard times with money - Doctor burnout / Limited hospital capacity
The size of the effect makes me wonder if there’s something multiplicative going on. If two independent bad things co-occuring will kill you, then reducing the likelihood of both those things by 30% would reduce the resulting deaths by 51%.
12−0.72 = 0.51
It was three things that needed to co-occur, then 30% reductions would yield a 66% reduction in resulting deaths.
13−0.73=0.66
I think this would generalise somewhat to a more complicated causal landscape, so long as a sizable proportion of the deaths are caused by these multiplicative interactions. This could perhaps explain why the reduction in deaths amount to more than the sum of their parts?
Examples of relevant bad things:
- Malnutrition
- Parental illness
- Disease
- Hard times with money
- Doctor burnout / Limited hospital capacity
This is a really interesting take. I wish I knew what terms to look for to find papers exploring these multiplicative interactions, if any.