Rank #1 ITN Score: 24/301 under review

Global Health & Disease

Preventable diseases kill millions annually. Malaria, tuberculosis, and neglected tropical diseases disproportionately affect the global poor despite cost-effective interventions existing.

Key Statistic

~600,000 malaria deaths per year — 95% preventable with known interventions.

ITN Assessment

Importance9/10

Scale & severity

Tractability8/10

Ease of progress

Neglectedness7/10

Lack of attention

1 follower

Why This Matters

High importance due to scale of suffering; high tractability given proven interventions like bednets and vaccines; neglected relative to economic burden in rich countries.

Key Organizations

GiveWell
Evaluates and recommends cost-effective global health charities.
Against Malaria Foundation
Distributes long-lasting insecticidal nets in sub-Saharan Africa.
Malaria Consortium
Runs seasonal malaria chemoprevention programs.
Helen Keller International
Vitamin A supplementation and nutrition programs.
Evidence Action
Scales rigorously tested interventions such as deworming and safe water.

Submit New Draft

1 approved · 1 community drafts

Sort

The Case for Global Health: Prioritizing High-Impact Disease Interventionsv1Accepted

WorldProblems Consortium

Preventable infectious diseases kill millions of people every year, yet cost-effective interventions — insecticide-treated bednets, oral rehydration therapy, vaccine delivery — exist and are dramatically underfunded relative to their impact per dollar. This founding report surveys the global burden of disease, evaluates the evidence base for top interventions, and argues that global health remains one of the highest-return areas for philanthropic and policy attention in 2026.

+0 votes

Followers

Approved Docs

Evidence & References

80,000 Hours Problem Profile

https://80000hours.org/problem-profiles/

Problem Profile

Why Pressing

Preventable disease and extreme poverty still kill roughly 5 million children under five every year despite the existence of low-cost, evidence-backed interventions. Progress has slowed sharply as high-income donors retrench: the 2025 round of US aid cuts withdrew more than 10 billion dollars from global health programs, and both Gavi and the Global Fund face multi-year funding gaps. The marginal impact of well-targeted philanthropy and policy work has therefore risen. Decades of randomized evidence show very large differences between the best and median interventions, so directing attention toward cost-effective tools such as bednets, vaccination, and cash transfers continues to save lives at a rate few other cause areas can match.

Scale

Around 60 million people die globally each year, with lower- and middle-income countries bearing a disproportionate share of avoidable deaths. Malaria alone kills roughly 600,000 people annually, tuberculosis about 1.3 million, and diarrheal disease around 500,000 children under five. Roughly 700 million people live below the World Bank's 2.15 dollar per day extreme poverty line, and the global burden of disease runs into the billions of disability-adjusted life-years.

Neglectedness

Global health is not entirely neglected but is severely underfunded relative to its scale. Total development assistance for health sits near 40 billion dollars per year, and US reductions in 2025 alone reversed years of growth. Highly cost-effective niches such as malaria prevention, deworming, and neglected tropical diseases still receive only a small share of attention compared with diseases prominent in donor countries.

Tractability

Few problems are this tractable. Randomized trials have identified interventions that avert a death for roughly 5,000 dollars, such as long-lasting insecticidal nets. Vaccines eliminated smallpox and have nearly eliminated polio. New cost-effective tools continue to be discovered, including seasonal malaria chemoprevention and the RTS,S and R21 vaccines. GiveWell-recommended charities give donors a transparent path to measurable impact.