The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given $105 million to the University of Washington to study the effectiveness of public health programs around the world. The money will be used to create a center to track such measures as child mortality, the prevalence of major diseases and the availability of medical treatment.
The purpose of the research, the Wall Street Journal reports, is to better evaluate the effectiveness private funding on public health. It's the second major grant given by the Gates Foundation to boost health statistics; in 2005 $50 million was given to the World Health Organization to track health in developing nations. (More Bill Gates stories.)