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Source: GiveWell
Many charity-run programs are designed to promote global health, aiming to improve access to preventive services and medical treatments. Such programs, if effective, have the potential to dramatically improve people’s lives by reducing suffering from readily preventable and treatable illnesses.
Source: Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy
School-Based Deworming:Parasitic worms harm children's health and development and limit their participation in school. For just pennies per treatment, deworming pills administered through school programs can improve health and increase attendance.
Immunizations:Low vaccination rates lead to millions of preventable deaths every year. Mobile clinics and small, non-monetary incentives encourage people to get vaccinated.
Source: Innovations for Poverty Action
Charities run many programs, including:
Charities offer a wide variety of activities and services, such as: educational public health campaigns, access to preventive services, and medical treatment.
School-Based Deworming:
Immunizations:
There are many medical interventions that are proven to improve health and save lives, including vaccinations, drug treatments, and materials such as insecticide-treated nets for protection against malaria. When evaluating health charities, donors should look for evidence that:
While global health programs have the potential to produce meaningful improvements in people’s lives, only a few are backed by strong evidence of sizable, sustained effects on important outcomes. Many programs are backed by preliminary evidence—for example, studies showing effects on intermediate outcomes such as health knowledge or number of visits to a clinic. Donors should recognize, however, that when such programs are evaluated in more definitive studies with longer-term follow-up, these preliminary effects too often do not translate into sustained effects on more important outcomes, such as immunization rates or incidence of disease. Donors should ask about the evidence supporting the effectiveness of a specific program a charity is running—particularly whether there are rigorous studies, such as well-conducted randomized controlled trials, showing sizable, sustained effects on people’s lives.
School-Based Deworming:With more schools than clinics, and more teachers than health workers, the existing and extensive education infrastructure provides the most efficient way to reach the highest number of school-age children. With minimal additional training, teachers can administer deworming pills and information on the importance of deworming can reach a large number of children.
Immunizations:Immunization rates are low even in places like India where vaccinations are available free of charge in public health facilities. The combination of a well-staffed mobile immunization camp and small, non-monetary incentives (such as 1 kg bag of lentils per immunization, plus a set of plates per completion of an entire immunization schedule) leads to more children receiving vaccines and a greater likelihood of full immunization, thus increasing the immunization rates.
*The United Nations Foundation accepts donations on behalf of the Stop Tuberculosis Partnership. View the United Nations Foundation's GuideStar report.
**The Schistosomiasis Control Initiative is not in the GuideStar USA database because it is an international organization that is not registered with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.