{"id":10109,"date":"2024-09-20T07:06:22","date_gmt":"2024-09-20T07:06:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.effektivaltruism.org\/course\/what-are-the-solutions-with-the-greatest-impact\/"},"modified":"2024-09-23T04:14:17","modified_gmt":"2024-09-23T04:14:17","slug":"what-are-the-solutions-with-the-greatest-impact","status":"publish","type":"tva_lesson","link":"https:\/\/www.effektivaltruism.org\/en\/course\/what-are-the-solutions-with-the-greatest-impact\/","title":{"rendered":"What are the solutions with the greatest impact?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Imagine that a person approaches you on the street and asks you to invest SEK 500 in her company. Few of us would say yes outright. First, we would ask for more information about the company\u2019s operations, employees and future prospects. We would probably also like to think about the matter in peace and compare the possibility with other potential placements.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

This feels obvious to our private finances, but when it comes to doing good, we rarely evaluate what \u201creturn\u201d we can expect for the resources we \u201cinvest\u201d in world improvement. Local fundraisers can make us feel great empathy for the causes they represent and assure us that only a small part of the business\u2019s costs goes to administration. But what is rarely talked about is what we should ask ourselves first: what world improvement can you achieve with my money? Is it better than other possible options? If the goal is to improve the world, rather than to alleviate our feelings of guilt, this question should be central. <\/p>\n

How do you compare the effect of different health interventions?<\/h3>\n

Health economics is a field of research that analyzes how resources in healthcare should be used to improve people\u2019s health the most. Governments, agencies and international organizations like the WHO regularly need to choose how to allocate funds to do the most good, and such decisions are not made blindly. Well-being can be measured in many different ways, but some established measures are quality-adjusted life years<\/a> (QALY) and disability-adjusted life years<\/a> (DALY). They make it possible to compare the effect of different interventions by weighting together time and quality of life. These types of quantitative measures do not capture all aspects of well-being and there may be other factors that are important to consider. But they can be a good starting point and in combination with further analysis they can be used to try to make the best estimates possible.<\/p>\n

Exercise <\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s often hard to know what interventions are the most effective before actually testing them in reality. Below are five different interventions to reduce HIV and AIDS. Can you guess which ones are most cost-effective (improves lives the most for every dollar spent)? Drag and drop to rank the options.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Hand out condoms<\/li>\n
  2. Surgical treatment for Kaposi\u2019s sarcoma (a type of cancer)<\/li>\n
  3. Educate high-risk groups<\/li>\n
  4. Prevent transmission of infection during pregnancy<\/li>\n
  5. Antiretroviral treatment (slow medication)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Read more<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Cost-effectiveness<\/a> \u2013 article by GiveWell<\/p>\n

    Doing Good Better \u2013 book by William MacAskill<\/p>\n

    The Moral Imperative toward Cost-Effectiveness in Global Health<\/a> \u2013 article by Toby Ord<\/p>\n

    Health economic evaluations<\/a> \u2013 article by the Swedish Public Health Authority<\/p>\n

    Disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) <\/a>\u2013 article by WHO<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","class_list":["post-10109","tva_lesson","type-tva_lesson","status-publish","hentry","tva_courses-career-guide"],"yoast_head":"\nEffektiv Altruism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.effektivaltruism.org\/course\/what-are-the-solutions-with-the-greatest-impact\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What are the solutions with the greatest impact? - Effektiv Altruism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Imagine that a person approaches you on the street and asks you to invest SEK 500 in her company. 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