Review of PIH: Summary

What they do: the PIH model is a combination of clinic-based care (hospitals and health centers) and community-based care (home visits and prevention campaigns) aiming to bring quality health care to extremely poor rural areas.

Does it work? PIH's model is straightforward, logical, and well-documented. We would bet that PIH significantly improves health care for regions with many health problems, and therefore saves lives.

What do you get for your dollar? Focusing on PIH's Rwanda program (the one we know the most about), our rough estimate has it saving lives for something in the neighborhood of $3500 each. As a health clinic PIH also provides many services that improve quality of life even if they don't save lives, though it is difficult for us to compare PIH to our other applicants on these terms (as our other applicants also provide additional benefits). More on the goal of this cause, and the terms of comparison, is here.

Where they rank: the other programs we've examined from our finalists appear more "cost-effective" to us, in terms of the cost per person saved from death (or extreme debilitation). That said, we have relatively high confidence in PIH as a whole (not just a single project); this, along with the concreteness and comprehensiveness of its model, makes us prefer it to all of our finalists other than PSI.

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To see our complete, in-depth review of PIH, click here

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