EA forum post: Training health workers to prevent newborn deaths

The article: “EA forum post: Training health workers to prevent newborn deaths”

Fundamental Justification

I expect this post could contribute to increased interest in this cause area and potentially increased funding from EA organizations in this cause area over a ~5-10 year time horizon.

• A good outcome would be recognition of a new cause area that is as cost-effective as causes that get much more attention in the EA community.
• An very good outcome would be increased traction for a concerted effort to develop learning solutions for health workers in low income countries that are 10X better than current solutions.
• An unusually good outcome would be all of the above plus follow-up research showing that new interventions are very cost-effective and able to absorb large amounts of funding.
• An unusually bad outcome would be over-investment in this cause area at the expense of another (hypothetical) cause area that is more cost-effective.

What actual outcomes are you aware of?

So far, the amount of views of the post, a limited amount of feedback from those who have read it, and some upvotes/comments in the forum. In addition I've been able to share the post in the context of several conversations about my work to help EA-aligned individuals see how health worker training can translate to impact.

Who can make a legitimate claim to a fraction of the impact, and have you talked to them?

All ideas, analyses, and opinions are my own, so I would say just me.

Who are the current owners of the impact and what fraction do they each own?

Myself - 100%

Procedural Questions

What is your minimum valuation under which you’ll not sell any shares in your impact?

I think the post's total impact is worth at least $10,000. That might seem like a high number, but I'll justify it here:

• Most EA forum posts, even those that deal with new causes, provide little to no quantitative data on the impact of interventions; they tend to be mostly speculative
• This post includes a systematic analysis of current data on the cost-effectiveness of health worker training in neonatal care, rather than presenting a hand-picked selection of the most cost-effective studies
• This post proposes new mechanisms to further increase cost-effectiveness
• The potential impacts of the interventions described in the post are quantifiable and realizable on a short (~5-10 year) time span
• The innovations proposed are all feasible with current technology - the only uncertainties are financial and operational

This certificate of impact (this “Certificate”) represents the impact from writing and publishing the post only and does not represent the impact from any other action, activities, products or services, past, present, or future. This Certificate confers no legal rights or interests whatsoever to products, services, or intellectual property that are based upon or incorporate wholly or partially any content or idea contained or described in the post.

What would you have done had there been no chance to get retro funding? (This helps us assess our impact but has no effect on our evaluation of the certificate’s impact.)

In this case, I would not have behaved differently as I did not know about the contest at the time of writing. In the future, if I were aware of retroactive funding mechanisms that were accessible to me, I might invest time in researching and applying for such funding.

What can we improve about this process?

I think further explanation of how impact can be re-sold or re-used, and what rights it confers, would help. Some plain-language legal terms linked directly from this page would be very helpful. For example, if this forum post somehow generated revenue, the impact certificate would probably not not entitle its owner to revenue, but that could be described in some kind of contract. I would assume that legal ownership of impact is not the same as legal ownership of intellectual property, but that would be good to know as well.