{"id":18726,"date":"2025-03-10T21:20:14","date_gmt":"2025-03-10T10:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeforachild.org\/?p=18726"},"modified":"2025-03-12T19:33:16","modified_gmt":"2025-03-12T08:33:16","slug":"the-cost-effectiveness-of-life-for-a-child","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeforachild.org\/2025\/03\/10\/the-cost-effectiveness-of-life-for-a-child\/","title":{"rendered":"The cost-effectiveness of Life for a Child"},"content":{"rendered":"
This article was written by Dana Lewis, <\/a>originally published on DIYPS.org<\/a> on March 4, 2025, and is shared here with permission.<\/h5>\n

A deep dive into DALY estimates and the 2025 funding gap<\/span><\/h4>\n

Life for a Child is an international non-profit organization that supports children with diabetes by providing insulin, test strips, and essential diabetes care to over 60,000 children in low-income countries who would otherwise have little to no access to treatment.<\/p>\n

Without access to supplies and skilled medical care, children with type 1 diabetes (T1D) often die quickly, and with only intermittent access may die within a few years of diagnosis. In some countries,\u00a0 limited amounts and types of older insulins may be provided by the health systems. In these \u2018luckier\u2019 countries,\u00a0test strips are still not usually provided<\/a>. Without regular blood glucose testing, children may survive into early adulthood, yet still experience early mortality due to long-term complications such as blindness, kidney failure, or amputations.<\/p>\n

Life for a Child\u00a0<\/a>(LFAC) offers a lifeline, extending life expectancy and improving the quality of life for children at a remarkably low cost. Life for a Child also does incredibly critical work in improving care delivery infrastructures in each of these countries that they support. They work directly with local healthcare providers to co-develop critical education materials for young people living with diabetes. Further, they provide a support network to local healthcare providers and some governments. This is all to help improve sustainability of access to services, medications, and support for people with diabetes in the long run.<\/p>\n

Scott and I have been supporting Life for a Child as our charity of choice for many years. As we\u00a0wrote in our analysis here<\/a>\u00a0in 2017:<\/p>\n

\u201cLife for a Child seems like a fairly effective charity, spending about $200-$300\/yr for each person they serve (thanks in part to in-kind donations from pharmaceutical firms). If we assume that providing insulin and other diabetes supplies to one individual (and hopefully keeping them alive) for 40 years is approximately the equivalent of preventing a death from malaria, that would mean that Life for a Child might be about half as effective as AMF, which is quite good compared to the far lower effectiveness of most charities, especially those that work in first world countries.\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We used some of GiveWell\u2019s analyses to assess effective giving, especially comparing options like GiveDirectly or more specific charity options like AMF:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200bFor example, the Against Malaria Foundation, the recommended charity with the most transparent and straightforward impact on people\u2019s lives, can buy and distribute an insecticide-treated bed net for about $5.\u00a0 Distributing about 600-1000 such nets results in one child living who otherwise would have died, and prevents dozens of cases of malaria.\u00a0 As such, donating 10% of a typical American household\u2019s income to AMF will save the lives of 1-2 African kids *every year*.\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Note<\/b>: In addition to donations, I also have supported Life for a\u00a0 Child with my time at both the US level, serving on the US-based Life for a Child US board, as well as the US representative on the international advisory committee for Life for a Child.)<\/p>\n

However, in 2025, Life for a Child faces an immediate and unexpected\u00a0$300,000 funding shortfall,\u00a0<\/b>due to a previously committed donor no longer being able to provide this donation. This funding was for test strips, which will reduce the number of strips provided per child from\u00a0three to two test strips per day<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Further,\u00a0Life for a Child has additional funding needs to continue expanding to support more children who are otherwise unsupported and going without critical supplies.\u00a0<\/b>(The room for funding is several orders of magnitude above this year\u2019s funding gap<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

In order to assess the need for how we (in a general sense, speaking of all of us) fill this funding gap and understanding if this is still a cost-effective way to support people with diabetes, we wanted to revisit our analysis for how cost-effective Life For a Child is.<\/p>\n

For background, I asked Graham Ogle, head of LFAC, for some numbers. These include:<\/p>\n