About the Authors

Blake C. Alkire

Contributed equally to this work with: Blake C. Alkire, Jeffrey R. Vincent

Affiliations Department of Otology and Laryngology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, Program in Global Surgery and Social Change, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Jeffrey R. Vincent

Contributed equally to this work with: Blake C. Alkire, Jeffrey R. Vincent

Affiliation Nicholas School of the Environment and Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America

Christy Turlington Burns

Affiliation Department of Population and Family Health, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America

Ian S. Metzler

Affiliation Program in Global Surgery and Social Change, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Paul E. Farmer

Affiliation Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

John G. Meara

john.meara@childrens.harvard.edu

Affiliations Program in Global Surgery and Social Change, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, Department of Plastic and Oral Surgery, Children's Hospital Boston, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: BCA JRV PEF JGM. Performed the experiments: BCA JRV JGM. Analyzed the data: BCA JRV JGM. Wrote the paper: BCA JRV CTB ISM PEF JGM. Developed the economic approach to valuing DALYs with the value of a statistical life-year: BCA JRV JGM. Acquisition of data: BCA. Interpretation of data: BCA JRV CTB ISM PEF JGM.