Christopher Murray is originally from New Zealand but he grew up around the world. His parents ran a clinic in west Africa for a year. The clinic was so understaffed when they got there that Chris and his older siblings had to do a lot of the care. During their time there the family noticed that malnourished people who were fed got sick from malaria. They found out that the virus requires iron to thrive. When people are starving they don't have the iron stores for their bodies to support the virus. When they are refed, they are again good hosts for the disease. The family published their findings in Lancet. This led to Chris' lifelong interest in scientific research - especially research into whether or not conventional wisdom is correct.

At the World Health Organization, he found that a lot of the health data used to make policy decisions was based on numbers that were made up. He worked with another researcher to develop a formula that figured out the true cost of disease in each country. He also took into consideration not just the deaths from that disease but the damage done from a disease causing less than optimal health in the population. I also appreciated his focus on adult health statistics and not just childhood disease.

Using this data lets countries and NGOs decide where the most effective places to put their money are. Does it help more people to treat malaria or diarrhea? If you can only vaccinate for one is it better to give polio vaccine or measles? Measles kills more people but if you survive it you are fine. Polio doesn't kill as many people but survivors have more disability. These are the kinds of questions that they try to answer.

I found the subject matter interesting but the book got bogged down in a lot of interdepartmental politics in the middle. It picks up again at the end with ideas for living a better life based on the findings of the Global Burden of Disease study. If you are interested in the real life applications of science and mathematics, this is a great book for you.

Tour schedule:

Tuesday, March 28th: Lit and Life

Thursday, March 30th: bookchickdi

Friday, March 31st: Cerebral Girl in a Redneck World

Tuesday, April 4th: Sapphire Ng

Wednesday, April 5th: Readaholic Zone

Thursday, April 6th: Man of La Book

Monday, April 10th: Doing Dewey

Tuesday, April 11th: Based on a True Story

Wednesday, April 12th: Kissin Blue Karen

Friday, April 14th: Read Till Dawn

Friday, April 14th: Jathan & Heather