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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Good news and less profitable?<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
And, yes, we’re a non-profit organization, but we count years of healthy life added as “profit” – or our retained earnings.<\/p>\n