(1) In hypertension/âsalt reduction policy, CEARCH (in collaboration with the donors we advise) has made 150k in grants (specifically, projects advocating forâand assisting governments in implementingâreformulation policies to reduce sodium in food).
In diabetes/âsoda taxes, CEARCH has made 63k in grants (specifically, technical assistance to improve enforcement of and compliance with SSB taxes).
(2) For the the bigger GW grantmakers, Iâm unsure how much I can share given confidentiality, and I donât want to falsely give the impression that these grantmakers have already developed any specific views/âpositions/ârecommendations in this area, but I think I can broadly share that:
(a) FP previously asked us to help evaluate two large global NGO that worked on salt policy, with a specific focus on trying estimate the counterfactual advocacy success rate of salt policy advocacy campaigns (itâs about 10%). We ended up making a positive recommendation, particularly for RTSL and its salt reduction work. Note that FP already supports RTSLâs trans fat reduction work.
(b) GiveWell is currently considering making a salt grant to RTSL, but I understand itâs exploratory in nature (see how this goes, then follow-up from there). They have also done some internal CEAs of SSB taxation projects; I think their major concern (a frustration shared by us) relates to high uncertainty over the existing GBD estimates of the SSB burden (n.b. the estimates changed wildly from one iteration of the GBD to the next, and itâs not clear to us how or why the methodology changed). FWIW, I donât see any evidence that the GBD estimates are systematically biased (particularly upwards, which would be the main concern), so weâre happy to go ahead.
(3) Broadly speaking, Iâll say that while there is very good reason think that health policy to prevent NCDs is extremely cost-effective (NCDs are a big and growing problem + policy offers large scale of impact at low cost), itâs also very risky, and very much hits-based EV-maximizing grantmaking, which is not something many grantmakers or donors are comfortable with. Correspondingly, weâve only been able to move about 100k per annum so far in this area (compared to something like mental health, where we helped a partner move 10x that).
They have also done some internal CEAs of SSB taxation projects; I think their major concern (a frustration shared by us) relates to high uncertainty over the existing GBD estimates of the SSB burden (n.b. the estimates changed wildly from one iteration of the GBD to the next, and itâs not clear to us how or why the methodology changed).
I wonder whether GiveWell has considered making a grant to decrease the uncertainty of the burden of SSBs.
Which organisation would you recommend to someone wanting to maximise human-years in a fully causal and risk neutral way (the organisation does not have to work on non-communicable diseases (NCDs))? What is your best guess for its cost-effectiveness in terms of additional human-years per aditional $ spent as a fraction of that of GiveWellâs top charities, which I estimate to be 0.0128 human-year/â$? It would be great if you could briefly explain why, such as by linking to any supporting cost-effectiveness analyses (CEAs). I am asking because I suspect increasing human-years as cost-effectively as possible is the most cost-effective way to decrease negative animal-years of wild animals, via increasing cropland supporting food consumption.
I thought GiveWell was quite risk neutral considering their extensive funding of deworming. I also wonder why Open Philanthropyâs (OPâs) Global Public Health Policy (GPHP) team is not focussing on diabetes and hypertension.
(1) Weâve generally looked at DALYs (and not just deaths/âYLL averted), but given the high cost-effectiveness of both hypertension/âsalt & diabetes/âSSB in DALY terms (with the former being somewhat less cost-effective but having deaths make up like 90% of the burden), theyâre plausible candidates (CEAs linked in the cause evaluation result spreadsheet). Trans fat/âtobacco/âalcohol are other plausible candidatesâgiven the clear scientific evidence on mortality + it being difficult to beat policy ideas for cost-effectiveness. Youâll probably also have more speculative stuff like funding development of new vaccines or doing biological control of mosquitoes, but we havenât done any deep research there.
Nuclear/âvolcanic winter famine mitigation is another candidate (CEA in the spreadsheet), though obviously thereâs a strong self-defeating element from a WAW perspective.
(2) GiveWellâs grantmaking criteria include not just cost-effectiveness but also evidence of effectiveness (which means excluding those high-uncertainty high-EV stuff), though I would say that there is a distinction between their public facing recommendations (which do need to work within the constraint of retail donor risk aversion) and some of what GiveWell funds through other means (e.g. the explicitly more maximization-oriented All Grants Fund or via recommendation to OP). Some riskier stuff GiveWell/âOP has funded include alcohol policy and pesticide suicide prevention.
(3) Chris Smith and his team are great, but extremely limited in their time, so I donât think thereâs much ability to expand beyond lead and air pollution right now, even if they wanted to. Also, itâs always important to keep in mind that OP isnât any different from other research/âgrantmaking organizations insofar as the researchers/âprogramme officers are constrained by donor preference and risk aversion (specifically GVâs).
Thanks, Joel! I guess you would recommend donating to Resolve to Save Lives (RTSL) in order to increase human-years as cost-effectively as possible.
Nuclear/âvolcanic winter famine mitigation is another candidate (CEA in the spreadsheet), though obviously thereâs a strong self-defeating element from a WAW perspective.
Expanding cropland is a great way to increase food production in nuclear and volcanic winters.
I do think RTSLâs salt policy work (and other salt policy projects, particularly ImagineLaw in the Philippines) are reasonably good bets for maximizing life years saved. That said, I donât an individual donation to RTSL would help insofar as smaller donors canât purpose restrict it (see their donation button at https://ââresolvetosavelives.org/ââ).
In practice, I would suggest donating to CEARCHâs GHD policy regranting budget (via https://ââexploratory-altruism.org/ââwork-with-us/ââ, or just email me and Iâll put you in touch with our fiscal sponsor), making a note on purpose-restriction if you wish, and then your donation goes out as part of a broader consolidated package (e.g. that 63k grant we made on SSB tax enforcement was me personally and 5 other EA donors pulling together).
On nuclear/âvolcanic winterâwonât the direct effect just be straightforwardly mass extinction of wild animals, which eliminates their suffering? And in contrast, a lot of currently valuable farmland may just not be usable when temperatures shift, so there may not be an offset. A lot of uncertainty regardless, and reasonable people can disagree.
âHigh Impact Philanthropy Fund @ PPFâ links to CEARCHâs contact page, so I suppose people always have to email you in order to make a donation, thus discouraging small donations. I wonder whether there is an easy low cost way of enabling these.
Hi Vasco, thanks for flagging out. Iâve updated our Work With Us page to include the direct donation link (additional 1-3% in fees, but more convenient; if donors prefer minimizing fees, they should feel free to reach out and we can guide them through the cheaper wire transfer)
Thanks for clarifying, Joel! I plan to recommend people donate to CEARCHâs High Impact Philanthropy Fund (HIPF) in a post I am writing which I will share in this thread once it is published. Is HIPF trying to avert as many DALYs as possible in a risk neutral way? If so, I do not have to recommend restricted donations. Do you have a guess for HIPFâs marginal cost-effectiveness as a fraction of that of GiveWellâs top charities? I would guess 55 as implied by CEARCHâs CEA of advocating for taxing sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs).
Impact, nuclear, and volcanic winters would decrease the number of wild animals a lot, but replacing forested area with cropland to produce more food would decrease them further.
Our grantmaking always aims at maximizing DALYS averted (with income and other stuff translated to DALYs too).
In terms of cost-effectiveness, itâs nominally 30-50x GW, but GiveWell is more rigorous in discounting, so our figures should be inflated relative to GW. Based on some internal analysis we did of GWâs greater strictness in individual line-item estimation and in the greater number of adjustments they employ, we think a more conservative estimate is that our estimates may be up to 3x inflated (i.e. something we think is 10x GW may be closer to 3x GW, which is why we use a 10x GW threshold for recommending GHD causes in the first placeâto ensure that what we recommend is genuinely >GW, and moving money to the new cause area is +EV).
So my more conservative guess for our grantmaking is that itâs closer to 9-15x GW, but again I have to emphasize the high uncertainty (and riskiness, which is the inherent price we pay for these ultra high EV policy interventions).
Thanks, Joel! Do you also think your estimate that donating to Giving What We Can (GWWC) this year is 13 times as cost-effective as GiveWellâs top charities is also 3 times as high as it should be, such that your best guess is that it is 4.33 (= 13â3) times as cost-effective as GiveWellâs top charities (although there is large uncertainty)? Or is the adjustment only supposed to be applicable to CEARCHâs CEAs listed here?
Hey Vasco, the adjustment is specific to GiveWell vs us (or indeed, non-GW CEAs), since GiveWell probably is the most rigorous in discounting, while other organizations are less so, for various reasons (mainly timeâthatâs true for us, and why we just use a rough 10x GW threshold; and itâs true of FP too; Matt Lerner goes into detail here on the tradeoff between drilling down vs spending researcher time finding and supporting more high EV opportunities instead).
Relative to every other organization, I donât find CEARCH to be systematically overoptimistic in the same way (at least for our deep/âfinal round CEAs).
For our GWWC evaluation, I think the ballpark figure (robustly positive multiplier) probably still holds, but Iâm uncertain about the precise figure right now, after seeing some of GWWCâs latest data (theyâll release their 2023-24 impact evaluation soon).
I plan to recommend people donate to CEARCHâs High Impact Philanthropy Fund (HIPF) in a post I am writing which I will share in this thread once it is published.
I have now published the post where I recommend HIPF. It looks into the cost-effectiveness of interventions accounting for soil nematodes, mites, and springtails.
Hi Vasco,
(1) In hypertension/âsalt reduction policy, CEARCH (in collaboration with the donors we advise) has made 150k in grants (specifically, projects advocating forâand assisting governments in implementingâreformulation policies to reduce sodium in food).
In diabetes/âsoda taxes, CEARCH has made 63k in grants (specifically, technical assistance to improve enforcement of and compliance with SSB taxes).
(2) For the the bigger GW grantmakers, Iâm unsure how much I can share given confidentiality, and I donât want to falsely give the impression that these grantmakers have already developed any specific views/âpositions/ârecommendations in this area, but I think I can broadly share that:
(a) FP previously asked us to help evaluate two large global NGO that worked on salt policy, with a specific focus on trying estimate the counterfactual advocacy success rate of salt policy advocacy campaigns (itâs about 10%). We ended up making a positive recommendation, particularly for RTSL and its salt reduction work. Note that FP already supports RTSLâs trans fat reduction work.
(b) GiveWell is currently considering making a salt grant to RTSL, but I understand itâs exploratory in nature (see how this goes, then follow-up from there). They have also done some internal CEAs of SSB taxation projects; I think their major concern (a frustration shared by us) relates to high uncertainty over the existing GBD estimates of the SSB burden (n.b. the estimates changed wildly from one iteration of the GBD to the next, and itâs not clear to us how or why the methodology changed). FWIW, I donât see any evidence that the GBD estimates are systematically biased (particularly upwards, which would be the main concern), so weâre happy to go ahead.
(3) Broadly speaking, Iâll say that while there is very good reason think that health policy to prevent NCDs is extremely cost-effective (NCDs are a big and growing problem + policy offers large scale of impact at low cost), itâs also very risky, and very much hits-based EV-maximizing grantmaking, which is not something many grantmakers or donors are comfortable with. Correspondingly, weâve only been able to move about 100k per annum so far in this area (compared to something like mental health, where we helped a partner move 10x that).
I wonder whether GiveWell has considered making a grant to decrease the uncertainty of the burden of SSBs.
Thanks for the great context, Joel!
Which organisation would you recommend to someone wanting to maximise human-years in a fully causal and risk neutral way (the organisation does not have to work on non-communicable diseases (NCDs))? What is your best guess for its cost-effectiveness in terms of additional human-years per aditional $ spent as a fraction of that of GiveWellâs top charities, which I estimate to be 0.0128 human-year/â$? It would be great if you could briefly explain why, such as by linking to any supporting cost-effectiveness analyses (CEAs). I am asking because I suspect increasing human-years as cost-effectively as possible is the most cost-effective way to decrease negative animal-years of wild animals, via increasing cropland supporting food consumption.
I thought GiveWell was quite risk neutral considering their extensive funding of deworming. I also wonder why Open Philanthropyâs (OPâs) Global Public Health Policy (GPHP) team is not focussing on diabetes and hypertension.
Hi Vasco,
(1) Weâve generally looked at DALYs (and not just deaths/âYLL averted), but given the high cost-effectiveness of both hypertension/âsalt & diabetes/âSSB in DALY terms (with the former being somewhat less cost-effective but having deaths make up like 90% of the burden), theyâre plausible candidates (CEAs linked in the cause evaluation result spreadsheet). Trans fat/âtobacco/âalcohol are other plausible candidatesâgiven the clear scientific evidence on mortality + it being difficult to beat policy ideas for cost-effectiveness. Youâll probably also have more speculative stuff like funding development of new vaccines or doing biological control of mosquitoes, but we havenât done any deep research there.
Nuclear/âvolcanic winter famine mitigation is another candidate (CEA in the spreadsheet), though obviously thereâs a strong self-defeating element from a WAW perspective.
(2) GiveWellâs grantmaking criteria include not just cost-effectiveness but also evidence of effectiveness (which means excluding those high-uncertainty high-EV stuff), though I would say that there is a distinction between their public facing recommendations (which do need to work within the constraint of retail donor risk aversion) and some of what GiveWell funds through other means (e.g. the explicitly more maximization-oriented All Grants Fund or via recommendation to OP). Some riskier stuff GiveWell/âOP has funded include alcohol policy and pesticide suicide prevention.
(3) Chris Smith and his team are great, but extremely limited in their time, so I donât think thereâs much ability to expand beyond lead and air pollution right now, even if they wanted to. Also, itâs always important to keep in mind that OP isnât any different from other research/âgrantmaking organizations insofar as the researchers/âprogramme officers are constrained by donor preference and risk aversion (specifically GVâs).
Thanks, Joel! I guess you would recommend donating to Resolve to Save Lives (RTSL) in order to increase human-years as cost-effectively as possible.
Expanding cropland is a great way to increase food production in nuclear and volcanic winters.
I do think RTSLâs salt policy work (and other salt policy projects, particularly ImagineLaw in the Philippines) are reasonably good bets for maximizing life years saved. That said, I donât an individual donation to RTSL would help insofar as smaller donors canât purpose restrict it (see their donation button at https://ââresolvetosavelives.org/ââ).
In practice, I would suggest donating to CEARCHâs GHD policy regranting budget (via https://ââexploratory-altruism.org/ââwork-with-us/ââ, or just email me and Iâll put you in touch with our fiscal sponsor), making a note on purpose-restriction if you wish, and then your donation goes out as part of a broader consolidated package (e.g. that 63k grant we made on SSB tax enforcement was me personally and 5 other EA donors pulling together).
On nuclear/âvolcanic winterâwonât the direct effect just be straightforwardly mass extinction of wild animals, which eliminates their suffering? And in contrast, a lot of currently valuable farmland may just not be usable when temperatures shift, so there may not be an offset. A lot of uncertainty regardless, and reasonable people can disagree.
âHigh Impact Philanthropy Fund @ PPFâ links to CEARCHâs contact page, so I suppose people always have to email you in order to make a donation, thus discouraging small donations. I wonder whether there is an easy low cost way of enabling these.
Hi Vasco, thanks for flagging out. Iâve updated our Work With Us page to include the direct donation link (additional 1-3% in fees, but more convenient; if donors prefer minimizing fees, they should feel free to reach out and we can guide them through the cheaper wire transfer)
Thanks, Joel!
Thanks for clarifying, Joel! I plan to recommend people donate to CEARCHâs High Impact Philanthropy Fund (HIPF) in a post I am writing which I will share in this thread once it is published. Is HIPF trying to avert as many DALYs as possible in a risk neutral way? If so, I do not have to recommend restricted donations. Do you have a guess for HIPFâs marginal cost-effectiveness as a fraction of that of GiveWellâs top charities? I would guess 55 as implied by CEARCHâs CEA of advocating for taxing sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs).
Impact, nuclear, and volcanic winters would decrease the number of wild animals a lot, but replacing forested area with cropland to produce more food would decrease them further.
Our grantmaking always aims at maximizing DALYS averted (with income and other stuff translated to DALYs too).
In terms of cost-effectiveness, itâs nominally 30-50x GW, but GiveWell is more rigorous in discounting, so our figures should be inflated relative to GW. Based on some internal analysis we did of GWâs greater strictness in individual line-item estimation and in the greater number of adjustments they employ, we think a more conservative estimate is that our estimates may be up to 3x inflated (i.e. something we think is 10x GW may be closer to 3x GW, which is why we use a 10x GW threshold for recommending GHD causes in the first placeâto ensure that what we recommend is genuinely >GW, and moving money to the new cause area is +EV).
So my more conservative guess for our grantmaking is that itâs closer to 9-15x GW, but again I have to emphasize the high uncertainty (and riskiness, which is the inherent price we pay for these ultra high EV policy interventions).
Thanks, Joel! Do you also think your estimate that donating to Giving What We Can (GWWC) this year is 13 times as cost-effective as GiveWellâs top charities is also 3 times as high as it should be, such that your best guess is that it is 4.33 (= 13â3) times as cost-effective as GiveWellâs top charities (although there is large uncertainty)? Or is the adjustment only supposed to be applicable to CEARCHâs CEAs listed here?
Hey Vasco, the adjustment is specific to GiveWell vs us (or indeed, non-GW CEAs), since GiveWell probably is the most rigorous in discounting, while other organizations are less so, for various reasons (mainly timeâthatâs true for us, and why we just use a rough 10x GW threshold; and itâs true of FP too; Matt Lerner goes into detail here on the tradeoff between drilling down vs spending researcher time finding and supporting more high EV opportunities instead).
Relative to every other organization, I donât find CEARCH to be systematically overoptimistic in the same way (at least for our deep/âfinal round CEAs).
For our GWWC evaluation, I think the ballpark figure (robustly positive multiplier) probably still holds, but Iâm uncertain about the precise figure right now, after seeing some of GWWCâs latest data (theyâll release their 2023-24 impact evaluation soon).
I have now published the post where I recommend HIPF. It looks into the cost-effectiveness of interventions accounting for soil nematodes, mites, and springtails.