The world seems a pretty miserable place right now. Refugee crises; spread of the Zika virus; violent extremism; failing and struggling states – it feels like our troubles are outrunning our ability to manage them.
But as my organization gathered to review its annual impact one piece of good news hit with striking effect: our work in malaria control around the world is likely to be dramatically less “profitable” this year versus last.
Good news and less profitable?
At PSI, we measure everything we do to improve global health. In particular, we use a common unit of measurement: years of healthy life. Also known in geekier terms as a DALY, or Disability Adjusted Life Year. In other words, years of healthy life that would otherwise have been lost to death or disease.
And, yes, we’re a non-profit organization, but we count years of healthy life added as “profit” – or our retained earnings.