Welfare Science

Animal Welfare Impact Assessment

Welfare impact assessment frameworks help prioritize interventions by estimating the number of animals affected and the severity of suffering.

Key Facts

Intensity, duration, and prevalence of suffering all factor into welfare impact estimates
Interventions affecting billions of farmed fish or insects have enormous aggregate impact
Small per-animal welfare improvements multiplied across billions of animals can exceed large improvements for small populations
Effective altruism frameworks have driven increased rigor in welfare impact estimation

Welfare Considerations

Welfare impact assessment allows systematic comparison of interventions. An improvement affecting 5% of welfare in a population of 1 billion animals may have more total welfare impact than eliminating suffering entirely for 10,000 animals. This calculus guides effective prioritization of welfare resources. The methodology is imperfect but provides a more rational basis for decisions than intuition alone.

What You Can Do

Support organizations that use welfare impact assessment to prioritize interventions
Learn about welfare impact evaluation frameworks and their applications
Consider scale when choosing which animal welfare causes to support
Advocate for evidence-based welfare policy development using impact assessment