Global health & wellbeing
Identifying and developing interventions to improve standards of living in low- and lower-middle-income countries
This profile is tailored towards students studying law and sociology, however we expect there to be valuable open research questions that could be pursued by students in other disciplines.
Why is this a pressing problem?
Estimates suggest that in 2021, about 9% of the global population were living in extreme poverty, and over 20% of the global population were living below the poverty line. Empirical studies show that citizens of the poorest nations report the lowest happiness, and global poverty means there are hundreds of millions of people across the world who can’t meet their most basic needs such as food, shelter and healthcare due to their economic circumstances.
According to the World Health Organization, ‘(extreme) [p]overty is the main reason why babies are not vaccinated, why clean water and sanitation are not provided, why curative drugs and other treatments are unavailable and why mothers die in childbirth. It is the underlying cause of reduced life expectancy, handicap, disability, and starvation. Poverty is a major contributor to mental illness, stress, suicide, family disintegration and substance abuse.’ Millions of people in poverty die every year from easily and cheaply preventable diseases such as malaria, HIV and tuberculosis. While average life expectancy in the USA and EU is 80 years, in low-income countries such as Nigeria or Angola, life expectancy is close to 50 years.
Although this area isn’t as neglected by researchers as some of the other topics we recommend, global poverty is a huge problem and there is a strong track record of interventions in the area. The vast differences between standards and costs of living in higher and lower income countries mean people from higher-income countries are in an unprecedented position to greatly improve the lives of people in lower-income countries with small amounts of money. Further research comparing the cost-effectiveness of different interventions and developing new interventions could help make interventions even more effective.
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Organisations
A few of the organisations working on this research direction are below.
The Center for Global Development is a research centre working to reduce global poverty through economic policy research.
The Development Innovation Lab does economic research to develop innovations to improve lives in low- and middle-income countries.
The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) is a research center working to reduce poverty by conducting randomized impact evaluations on poverty interventions.
The Yale Research Initiative on Innovation and Scale (Y-RISE) researches the effects of policy interventions when delivered at scale.
Givewell does research to identify the most effective charities working to improve people’s lives in the developing world.
Innovations for Poverty Action is a research and policy organisation conducting RCTs and evaluations of interventions to reduce poverty.
The Copenhagen Consensus Center is a think tank researching solutions for global problems, focusing on developing countries.
Charity Entrepreneurship is an organisation that carries out research to find neglected ways of improving the world and launches nonprofits to meet these needs, including in areas of global health.
The Center for Effective Aid Policy aims to improve the allocation of spending on development aid by identifying and advocating for particularly cost-effective interventions.
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Podcasts
We can use science to end poverty faster. But how much do governments listen to it anyway? from 80000 Hours
Ofir Reich on using data science to end poverty and the spurious action/inaction distinction from 80000 Hours
Guides on developing and evaluating interventions
