“How mass media can dramatically impact health behaviors. Announcing an new recommended charity for our Australian donors”
I’m thrilled to announce that we have added Development Media International (DMI) to The Life You Can Save Australia’s list of recommended charities. Donations in support of our recommended charities are tax-deductible in Australia. I have personally spent a considerable amount of time with the senior Team at DMI (including their CEO, Roy Head), and I have found them to be highly engaged in their work on behalf of their beneficiaries in sub-Saharan Africa; strongly committed to evidence-based, cost-effective interventions; and completely transparent.
DMI creates evidence-based behavior change campaigns to improve health and save lives. They are the first organization in the world to scientifically demonstrate through randomized controlled trials that mass media can impact health behaviors. They work to deliver their radio and television campaigns at scale to maximize impact and cost-effectiveness. Their first randomized controlled trial in Burkina Faso (2011-2015) demonstrated that their radio campaign could dramatically impact parenting behaviors that are associated with child mortality. In the first year of the campaign, treatment-seeking for malaria, pneumonia and diarrhea increased by 56%, 39%, and 73% respectively (all p<0.001) and modeling, using the well-known “lives saved tool,”suggests that these changes in health behaviors would correspond to approximately 3,000 children’s lives saved over the course of the campaign (Murray et al., 2018).
DMI is now seeking support to scale up its child survival campaigns to the countries in the world where such campaigns would be the most cost-effective. They conducted a thorough analysis of all the countries in the world with the highest levels of child mortality and concluded that campaigns in Tanzania, Madagascar, Mozambique and Burkina Faso should be prioritized. All donations to DMI coming through The Life You Can Save will contribute to saving children’s lives in these countries.
DMI has been a TLYCS-recommended charity for our US donors for many years, and we are now excited to have completed all required processes to have them onboard in Australia.
This is an exciting development and adds another excellent alternative for your end of financial year giving.
