Global Health & Disease
Preventable diseases kill millions annually. Malaria, tuberculosis, and neglected tropical diseases disproportionately affect the global poor despite cost-effective interventions existing.
Scale of the Problem
~600,000 malaria deaths per year — 95% preventable with known interventions.
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.
Why This Is 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.
Why It's Neglected
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.
Can It Be Solved?
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.
Research & Solutions
The Case for Global Health: Prioritizing High-Impact Disease Interventions
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What You Can Do
What this problem still needs
Donate to GiveWell-recommended charities such as the Against Malaria Foundation, Malaria Consortium, or Helen Keller International. Careers in epidemiology, health economics, global health policy, and implementation at organizations like Evidence Action and IDinsight have high impact. Biomedical research on neglected tropical diseases and vaccine development remains valuable. Advocacy against aid cuts and for effective spending is an underused lever.
Priority Score
24
Breakdown
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