Online Workshop: Wellbeing measures for prioritizing GH&D interventions (March 16; Unjournal Pivotal Questions)

NB:  Workshop details and resources are still being adjusted

Workshop goals

The Unjournal is hosting a small-group online workshop on Monday, March 16, 2026 (11am–4pm ET / 3–8pm UK) bringing together researchers and practitioners to consider two related questions.

1. How reliable are linear WELLBYs (relative to other metrics) for comparing interventions, particularly in low-income countries?
2. How should we convert between DALYs/QALYs and WELLBYs for making these comparisons?

These questions stem from our 'Pivotal Questions' discussion with Founders Pledge; it also seems relevant to GiveWell, Coefficient Giving, and others.
 

Confirmed participants include:

• Dan Benjamin (UCLA/NBER) & Miles Kimball (CU Boulder), presenting on scale-use heterogeneity in wellbeing surveys
• Julian Jamison (U of Exeter), discussing DALY-WELLBY conversion
• Caspar Kaiser (U of Warwick),  discussing barriers to WELLBY validity (comparability, linearity, neutral point)
• Christian Krekel (LSE), Daniel Rogger (World Bank), Anthony Lepinteur (U of Luxembourg)
• Peter Hickman (Coefficient Giving) & Matt Lerner (Founders Pledge): practitioner perspectives
   

Format

 As you can see in the link, we're experimenting with some new formats and tools for online workshops. It will be modular and tightly scheduled, so people can drop in for the segments that interest them. Segments cover stakeholder framing, research on 'adjusting for scale use', evaluator discussion, WELLBY reliability, DALY-WELLBY conversion, beliefs elicitation, and a practitioner panel. We're also encouraging asynchronous participation and feedback.

Participation

We're not sharing the Zoom link widely, as we need to manage the time and discussion carefully. But we have room for a few more voices, especially researchers in wellbeing/health measurement, practitioners at funding organizations, and people working on things like disability weights or cost-effectiveness methodology.

If you're interested: interest and availability form

Workshop details, schedule, and live session pages: uj-wellbeing-workshop.netlify.app/about

Even if you can't join or don't think you're a good fit, we'd love your feedback on either the structure and format or on the substantive questions.

And we're planning more online interactive workshops; this will serve as a pilot