I have for a time wanted something like a list of “personal” interventions likely to be ~GiveWell cost effective. This means when I or people in my social circle encounter someone struggling to pay for e.g. fixing a blocked aortic valve, I can feel somewhat confident about donating money directly to the afflicted person.
I imagine many of us EAs know several people who live or travel in poor countries where they every now and then encounter people in desperate situations. I myself am somewhat frequently contacted by friends about paying for someones surgery or school fees.
Basically I understand our current EA global health initiatives to require a high density of people to help. But this requirement might be bypassed if instead we have networks of people we trust that can identify people in situations we know are likely to be cost-effective to support financially. I agree with other commenters that this is not scalable, but it might make EAs have better standing in their respective social circles and could have other positive effects. This is almost like a personal re-granting program.
I love your post—I think it goes a long way towards understanding if such a list might be useful. And I, like the other commenters, feel admiration and sadness after reading your piece.
Thanks Ulrik, this is a really interesting question about a list of interventions and you might be right there is scope for more work here. I would imagine @CE (charity entrepreneurship) have thought about this before, and might have a list of specific medical interventions that could be cost-effective.
I might start by splitting these into “life saving” interventions, where most of the benefit comes from one potential life “saved”—situations like malnutrition, cancer treatment and heart operations “life improving” interventions where most of the benefit comes from things like fistular surgery, sight-saving medication and surgery and fixing retracted testicles.
The problem is though where do you stop considering something a single “intervention”? Treatment for malaria, pneumonia and sickle cell could be cost effective but is already a standard part of almost any health systems, and its more about making sure people get the treatment quickly and cheaply or for free.
I also like your idea of “networks of people we can trust” to support individuals as well, which could have the advantage of building EA community and resisting value drift as well. Keep in mind though these kinds of people might also be busy with other work. I personally love to be contacted with questions about this kind of thing so am always happy to give my poorly-to-moderately-informed opinion on medical stuff.
I have for a time wanted something like a list of “personal” interventions likely to be ~GiveWell cost effective. This means when I or people in my social circle encounter someone struggling to pay for e.g. fixing a blocked aortic valve, I can feel somewhat confident about donating money directly to the afflicted person.
I imagine many of us EAs know several people who live or travel in poor countries where they every now and then encounter people in desperate situations. I myself am somewhat frequently contacted by friends about paying for someones surgery or school fees.
Basically I understand our current EA global health initiatives to require a high density of people to help. But this requirement might be bypassed if instead we have networks of people we trust that can identify people in situations we know are likely to be cost-effective to support financially. I agree with other commenters that this is not scalable, but it might make EAs have better standing in their respective social circles and could have other positive effects. This is almost like a personal re-granting program.
I love your post—I think it goes a long way towards understanding if such a list might be useful. And I, like the other commenters, feel admiration and sadness after reading your piece.
Thanks Ulrik, this is a really interesting question about a list of interventions and you might be right there is scope for more work here. I would imagine @CE (charity entrepreneurship) have thought about this before, and might have a list of specific medical interventions that could be cost-effective.
I might start by splitting these into “life saving” interventions, where most of the benefit comes from one potential life “saved”—situations like malnutrition, cancer treatment and heart operations “life improving” interventions where most of the benefit comes from things like fistular surgery, sight-saving medication and surgery and fixing retracted testicles.
The problem is though where do you stop considering something a single “intervention”? Treatment for malaria, pneumonia and sickle cell could be cost effective but is already a standard part of almost any health systems, and its more about making sure people get the treatment quickly and cheaply or for free.
I also like your idea of “networks of people we can trust” to support individuals as well, which could have the advantage of building EA community and resisting value drift as well. Keep in mind though these kinds of people might also be busy with other work. I personally love to be contacted with questions about this kind of thing so am always happy to give my poorly-to-moderately-informed opinion on medical stuff.