While itās just a search methodology and we havenāt had the chance to brainstorm thoroughly with it. However, off the top of my, here are some potential interventions that have benefits across multiple cause areas: (a) general vaccine immunization reminders, of course, since they increase uptake of multiple vaccines and help combat multiple diseases; (b) front-of-pack labelling, which tends to have positive impact on consumption of salt (and hence the hypertension burden), sugar (and hence the diabetes burden) and general calories (and hence the obesity burden); and (c) resilient food systems (which potentially helps both in normal famines, plus more extreme nuclear winter/āabrupt sunlight reduction scenarios).
Maybe I misunderstood something but my understanding was that there was an entry that you rewarded related to significant overall impact given the benefits across multiple cause areas. So I was wondering if this is something you could share.
Yep, thatās what Jeroen submitted, and he posted it to the forum after. I think itās a really useful perspective to have. In GHD, we already have various risk factors that we can address to solve multiple diseases (e.g. hypertension for coronary heart disease, stroke, kidney disease etc), and it makes sense to apply this perspective more broadly.
I donāt want to take up your time so feel free to not reply, just wondering out loud how Jeroenās method compares to the systematic cause mapping approach Michael Plant suggested in his thesis for generating new promising causes. I suppose the latter can be interpreted as a systematic way to implement Jeroenās method; for instance, starting from this table in Plantās thesis generating happiness intervention ideasā¦
...Plant notes that many solutions apply to several primary causes (rows), inviting the idea of solution clustering (as illustrated below). I suppose Jeroenās āincreasing cycling rates in cities instead of car usageā example would be what Plant calls a secondary cause, or whatever is more granular than secondary cause. Your longlist of causes seems relevant here too.
(Aside: Iām not quite a fan of the āprimary vs secondary causeā naming, since the shared ācauseā name makes me think theyāre the same kind of thing when theyāre not ā primary causes are problems, while secondary causes are solutions. āIntervention area /ā clusterā wouldāve been more illuminating I think.)
I donāt think I read that part of Michaelās thesis before, but it does look interesting!
In general, I think itās fairly arbitrary what a cause isāan intervention/āsolution can also be reframed as a problem (and hence a cause) through negation (e.g. physical activity is a preventative solution to various diseases like cardiovascular disease or diabetes, and in a real sense physical inactivity is a problem; having an ALLFED-style resilient food supply is a mitigatory solution to nuclear winterāeven if we canāt prevent nuclear exchange, we can perhaps stop billions from dying from famineāand in that sense lack of foods capable of growing in abrupt sunlight reduction scenarios is a problem).
Hi Sebastian,
While itās just a search methodology and we havenāt had the chance to brainstorm thoroughly with it. However, off the top of my, here are some potential interventions that have benefits across multiple cause areas: (a) general vaccine immunization reminders, of course, since they increase uptake of multiple vaccines and help combat multiple diseases; (b) front-of-pack labelling, which tends to have positive impact on consumption of salt (and hence the hypertension burden), sugar (and hence the diabetes burden) and general calories (and hence the obesity burden); and (c) resilient food systems (which potentially helps both in normal famines, plus more extreme nuclear winter/āabrupt sunlight reduction scenarios).
Maybe I misunderstood something but my understanding was that there was an entry that you rewarded related to significant overall impact given the benefits across multiple cause areas. So I was wondering if this is something you could share.
Ah, noābasically the award was for a method of searching for impactful causes.
Ok, I feel a bit confused as to why a method wouldnāt have a more substantial entry or description but also donāt want to keep bothering you.
Maybe you were referencing this?
Yep, thatās what Jeroen submitted, and he posted it to the forum after. I think itās a really useful perspective to have. In GHD, we already have various risk factors that we can address to solve multiple diseases (e.g. hypertension for coronary heart disease, stroke, kidney disease etc), and it makes sense to apply this perspective more broadly.
Thanks Joel, I think I agree.
I donāt want to take up your time so feel free to not reply, just wondering out loud how Jeroenās method compares to the systematic cause mapping approach Michael Plant suggested in his thesis for generating new promising causes. I suppose the latter can be interpreted as a systematic way to implement Jeroenās method; for instance, starting from this table in Plantās thesis generating happiness intervention ideasā¦
...Plant notes that many solutions apply to several primary causes (rows), inviting the idea of solution clustering (as illustrated below). I suppose Jeroenās āincreasing cycling rates in cities instead of car usageā example would be what Plant calls a secondary cause, or whatever is more granular than secondary cause. Your longlist of causes seems relevant here too.
(Aside: Iām not quite a fan of the āprimary vs secondary causeā naming, since the shared ācauseā name makes me think theyāre the same kind of thing when theyāre not ā primary causes are problems, while secondary causes are solutions. āIntervention area /ā clusterā wouldāve been more illuminating I think.)
Hi Mo,
I donāt think I read that part of Michaelās thesis before, but it does look interesting!
In general, I think itās fairly arbitrary what a cause isāan intervention/āsolution can also be reframed as a problem (and hence a cause) through negation (e.g. physical activity is a preventative solution to various diseases like cardiovascular disease or diabetes, and in a real sense physical inactivity is a problem; having an ALLFED-style resilient food supply is a mitigatory solution to nuclear winterāeven if we canāt prevent nuclear exchange, we can perhaps stop billions from dying from famineāand in that sense lack of foods capable of growing in abrupt sunlight reduction scenarios is a problem).