welcome to the nonlinear library, where we use text-to-speech software to convert the best writing from the rationalist and ea communities into audio.
this is: Global lead exposure report, published by DavidBernard, Jason Schukraft on the effective altruism forum.
Rethink Priorities has been piloting expanding into human-focused neartermist global priorities research. This post is one of three outputs from the pilot program. Open Philanthropy provided funding for this project and we use their general frameworks for evaluating cause areas, but they do not necessarily endorse its conclusions. We don’t intend this report to be Rethink Priorities’ final word on lead exposure. We hope the report galvanizes a productive conversation about lead exposure within the EA community. We are open to revising our views as more information is uncovered.
If you are interested in doing similar research, please apply to Rethink Priorities’ Global Health and Development Staff Researcher position (deadline 13th June 2021).
Key Takeaways
Lead exposure is a large problem with social costs on the order of $5-10 trillion annually, most of which come through neurological damages and losses in IQ causing lost income later in life.
Lead exposure is diverse both in terms of sources and geography, with there being many different pathways for environmental lead to enter the human body and exposure being common across nearly all low- and middle-income countries.
Although the proportion of the lead burden attributable to different sources is unclear, important exposure pathways include informal recycling of lead acid batteries, residential use of lead-based paint, consumption of lead-adulterated foodstuffs, and cookware manufactured with scrap lead.
Strategies for reducing lead exposure are mostly context- and source-dependent, but generally preventing new lead entering the environment seems more tractable than removing existing lead.
We estimate that $6-10 million globally is currently spent by NGOs focused on reducing lead exposure in low- and middle-income countries.
We are confident that existing and potential new NGOs in the area currently have the capacity to productively absorb $5-10 million annually in additional money, and it’s possible though unlikely that this capacity would expand to $25 million annually over the next 5 years.
Rough initial cost-effectiveness estimates suggest that some strategies for dealing with lead exposure could be as or more cost-effective than GiveWell top charities.
Executive Summary
We believe that the problem of lead exposure deserves more attention than it currently receives in the neartermist effective altruism community.
Exposure to lead causes many problems. High levels of lead exposure can be fatal. Even at low levels of exposure, lead exposure causes neurological damage, especially in children. Lead exposure is associated with many cognitive and behavioral problems and is a significant risk factor for cardiovascular diseases, mental disorders, and kidney disease. Worldwide, lead exposure is estimated to impose a 21.7 million DALY burden (for comparison, malaria causes a 46.4 million DALY burden) and we think the true value is likely 30-100% larger. The economic costs of lead exposure, primarily lost earnings due to reductions in IQ, are estimated to total around a trillion dollars annually but we think the true value is 30-50% of this size. If one adopts a logarithmic income utility model[1], the utility value of this dollar burden is an order of magnitude higher, since 94% of the loss occurs in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) which have on average 10x lower incomes than the USA.
Lead exposure is common across LMICs. Important exposure pathways include the informal recycling of lead acid batteries,[2] the residential use of lead-based paint, the consumption of lead-adulterated foodstuffs (especially spices), and the use of improperly sealed aluminum-lead alloy cookware. Unfortunately, the proportion of ...
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