How Does $4,500 Save a Life? | GiveWell
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You are hereHome » How Does $4,500 Save a Life?
How Does $4,500 Save a Life?
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Published: December 2021
Why is it so expensive to save lives?
Of our nine recommended charities, four produce outcomes that help save lives. These charities are the most cost-effective programs we’ve found at saving lives.
Because the initial outputs of these charities are so inexpensive (for example, it costs about $5 to purchase and deliver an insecticide-treated net), many people are surprised at how expensive it is to save a life—about $4,500 on average for funding we directed in 2020.1
We hope that this 2020 example helps illustrate the discrepancy in cost between the initial outputs and the cost to save a life. This example does not reflect what we estimate this program's cost to save a life will be in the future. We generally expect the cost to save a life to increase over time.
The cost to save a life for one grant
Below we’ll explain our 2020 estimate for how $4,500 could save a life in Guinea by funding a net distribution through the Against Malaria Foundation. These numbers are based on a $7.2 million grant to AMF we funded in 2020. We estimate this grant will provide 1.6 million nets and save about 1,700 lives. We chose Guinea for this example because the cost-effectiveness of nets distributed there was close to the average cost-effectiveness of nets AMF distributed with grants from GiveWell’s Maximum Impact Fund and grants from Open Philanthropy in 2020.2
What $4,500 accomplished with AMF in Guinea3
Metric
Explanation
Step One:
1,001 nets delivered
The cost of purchasing and delivering each net is about $4.50,4 so $4,500 in donations can purchase about 1,001 nets.5
Step Two:
795 nets are in use
Evidence suggests that not all purchased nets are actually put to use. Based on this evidence, we estimate that about 79% of delivered nets are used in practice. So about 795 are actually in use as a result of this donation.6
Step Three:
1,431 people are protected by nets
Nets are often used to cover multiple people. On average, each net covers 1.8 people, implying that 795 nets in use protect 1,431 people.7
Step Four:
12 of those people are expected to die every year of any cause
In order to estimate how many lives these nets might save, we first need to know how many people in this population would have died without the protection of the nets. The mortality rates and population demographics in Guinea suggest that about twelve out of 1,431 people would have died per year of any cause (including malaria).8
Step Five: