TLDR: The best research we have shows that clean water may provide a 30% mortality reduction to children under 5. This might be the biggest mortality reduction of any single global health intervention, yet we don’t understand why it works.

Here, I share my journey exploring a life-saving intervention that we don’t fully understand, but really should. I may err a little on the side of artistic license - so if you find inaccuracies please forgive me, correct me or even feel free to just tear me to shreds in the comments ;).

Part 1: Givewell's Seemingly absurd numbers

I first became curious after a glance at what seemed like a dubious GiveWell funded project. A $450,000 dollar scoping grant for water chlorination in Rwanda? This didn’t make intuitive sense to me.

In Sub-saharan Africa diarrhoea causes 5-10% of child mortality. While significant, the diarrhea problem continues to improve with better access to [...]

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Outline:

(02:26) Part 2: A Nobel Prize winner's innovative math

(04:27) Part 3. We already knew about this anomaly – 100 years ago

(08:10) Part 5: What next for clean water?

The original text contained 7 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
November 4th, 2023

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/hFPbe2ZwmB9athsXT/clean-water-the-incredible-30-mortality-reducer-we-can-t

--- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.