Global Health & Wellbeing
The Deaths We Already Know How to Stop
Roughly 13,300 children die every day from causes we can prevent for a few dollars each (UNICEF, 2024).
Children under 5 who died in 2024, mostly preventable
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Estimated so far this year.
The evidence
Malaria Still Kills a Child Every Minute
Malaria killed an estimated 610,000 people in 2024, and children under 5 accounted for roughly 75 percent of deaths in the hardest-hit African region (WHO World Malaria Report, 2024). A single insecticide-treated bed net costs about $6 to deliver.
A Vitamin Pill Cuts Child Deaths by a Quarter
In children aged 6 to 59 months, twice-yearly vitamin A supplementation reduces all-cause mortality by roughly 25 percent (Cochrane, Imdad et al., 2022), and cost an estimated 105,000 to 235,000 averted deaths in sub-Saharan Africa in 2019 alone.
Worms Are Robbing Children of Their Future
Approximately 1.5 billion people, including more than 200 million preschool-age children, carry soil-transmitted worm infections that sap nutrition and cognitive development (WHO/PLOS NTD data). Deworming a child costs roughly 50 cents a year.
Just Give People Money
Unconditional cash transfers have one of the largest evidence bases of any anti-poverty intervention, with more than 200 independent studies behind them. Since 2009, GiveDirectly alone has moved over $900 million directly to more than 1.7 million people.
Extreme Poverty Is Concentrated and Persistent
Roughly 692 million people, about 8.5 percent of humanity, lived on less than $2.15 a day in 2024 (World Bank). Sub-Saharan Africa holds just 16 percent of the world's population but 67 percent of its extreme poor.
The World Spends 60 Times More on Some Lives Than Others
Rich countries spend roughly 60 times more per person on healthcare than the poorest countries, over $10,000 versus under $100 in the Central African Republic (Our World in Data).
What we can do
Phase 1: redirect giving toward the interventions with the strongest evidence and lowest cost per life saved, bed nets, seasonal malaria chemoprevention, vitamin A, deworming, and direct cash. Phase 2: use that evidence to pressure governments and major donors to restore and expand health aid budgets rather than let them shrink. Phase 3: back the scientific research and public health policy work that can retire these causes of death permanently rather than just managing them.
Sources: World Health Organization, GiveWell, UNICEF, World Bank, Our World in Data, Open Philanthropy, GiveDirectly, Cochrane Library
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