I was surprised to read that GiveWell estimates the value of “averting stillbirth or miscarriage” at 21 (where 1 is the value of doubling someone’s income for 1 year) and the value of averting a stillbirth at 33 based on a survey of “70 of our largest donors”, sadly it seems that they didn’t have beneficiaries survey data on the value of preventing stillbirths.
That’s more than what I would have guessed (for reference, the value of “preventing one 5-and-over death from malaria” is 83).
Thankyou for this- I’ve updated the post. I think this particular narrow intervention (adding syphilis testing to routine HIV screening programmes) is super exciting.
I was surprised to read that GiveWell estimates the value of “averting stillbirth or miscarriage” at 21(where 1 is the value of doubling someone’s income for 1 year) and the value of averting a stillbirth at 33based on a survey of “70 of our largest donors”, sadly it seems that they didn’t have beneficiaries survey data on the value of preventing stillbirths.
That’s more than what I would have guessed (for reference, the value of “preventing one 5-and-over death from malaria” is 83).
Interesting. What would your guess have been? My instinct is that people will have a very wide range of intuitions on this, at least until we’re able to be a bit more specific about what we’re asking for- even then, I expect quite a high degree of variance in how much people value averting a stillbirth. I don’t have a strong opinion myself on what the right number is.
My instinct is that people will have a very wide range of intuitions on this, at least until we’re able to be a bit more specific about what we’re asking for- even then, I expect quite a high degree of variance in how much people value averting a stillbirth. I don’t have a strong opinion myself on what the right number is.
I agree with this, and I think this might be a case where the largest donors, median donors, and beneficiaries might have very different intuitions.
What would your guess have been?
Very low confidence, but my central estimate would have been closer to 10, when asking beneficiaries, but it’s a baseless wild guess based on nothing.
In addition to the $3.9M grant, there’s also a more recent $15M grant to scale up.
I was surprised to read that GiveWell estimates the value of “averting stillbirth or miscarriage” at 21 (where 1 is the value of doubling someone’s income for 1 year) and the value of averting a stillbirth at 33 based on a survey of “70 of our largest donors”, sadly it seems that they didn’t have beneficiaries survey data on the value of preventing stillbirths.
That’s more than what I would have guessed (for reference, the value of “preventing one 5-and-over death from malaria” is 83).
Thankyou for this- I’ve updated the post. I think this particular narrow intervention (adding syphilis testing to routine HIV screening programmes) is super exciting.
Interesting. What would your guess have been? My instinct is that people will have a very wide range of intuitions on this, at least until we’re able to be a bit more specific about what we’re asking for- even then, I expect quite a high degree of variance in how much people value averting a stillbirth. I don’t have a strong opinion myself on what the right number is.
I agree with this, and I think this might be a case where the largest donors, median donors, and beneficiaries might have very different intuitions.
Very low confidence, but my central estimate would have been closer to 10, when asking beneficiaries, but it’s a baseless wild guess based on nothing.
Agreed that this seems very possible. Who should we listen to most closely if it is the case?