Frequently Asked Questions

For the purposes of the HomVEE review, an early childhood home visiting model is an intervention in which trained home visitors meet with expectant parents or families with young children to deliver a specified set of services through a specified set of interactions. These programs are voluntary interventions that are either designed or adapted and tested for delivery in the home. During the visits, home visitors aim to build strong, positive relationships with families to improve child and family outcomes. Services may be delivered on a schedule that is defined or can be tailored to meet family needs. A model has a set of fidelity standards that describe how the model is to be implemented.

Models reviewed by HomVEE must serve pregnant women or families with children from birth to kindergarten entry (that is, up until their sixth birthday), and the primary service delivery strategy must be home visiting. In addition, the model must have research that examines its effects in at least one of eight outcome domains.

Yes. HomVEE will review research about models that use entirely in-person home visiting and models with hybrid approaches that use both in-person and virtual home visits. Models that deliver all services virtually are ineligible; a model must be designed or adapted to require at least one in-person (that is, not virtual) home visit. HomVEE defines a virtual home visit as “delivery of an intervention’s home visit content to an individual caregiver or family conducted solely by use of electronic information and telecommunications technologies. The content should be designed or adapted for synchronous delivery. Some content may be delivered asynchronously, but asynchronous delivery cannot be the primary mode of delivery.”

HomVEE applies the same standards to research about virtual home visits as to research about in-person home visits. An evidence-based model may incorporate hybrid service delivery; doing so does not affect the model’s existing evidence rating. Previously reviewed research about evidence-based models is not re-reviewed to assess use of virtual service delivery.

Yes, any model that meets the definition of the early childhood home visiting model is included in the review, and this may include models that enroll people during pregnancy and aim to improve maternal health, infant health, and birth outcomes. For models with well-designed research that meets HomVEE’s published standards, detailed information about the theoretical approach, intended population, and targeted outcomes can be found via the implementation link on the Model Search Page on HomVEE’s website. That page also has a search function that allows the user to filter all models by population served. Detailed information about maternal and child health outcomes can be found in the “Effects shown in research” tab of each model effectiveness research report.

HomVEE lists the subgroups examined in each high- or moderate-rated manuscript reported on the HomVEE website. However, HomVEE only reports detailed subgroup findings when the subgroup is replicated, meaning that HomVEE has reviewed at least two well-designed studies that analyzed research about a sample with the subgroup characteristic. The Handbook of Procedures and Evidence Standards provides additional information about HomVEE procedures for subgroup research.

HomVEE’s website provides several resources for users that wish to know more about the characteristics of the research samples in a home visiting model’s evidence base. For more information, see FAQ “What information is available on the study samples in HomVEE's research database?”

HomVEE’s website provides several resources for users that wish to know more about the characteristics of the research samples in a home visiting model’s evidence base.

Information about individual study manuscripts: HomVEE records and displays information about study settings and participant characteristics for all manuscripts that receive a moderate or high rating. That information is available in the Manuscript Search page for individual manuscripts under the heading Study Participant Characteristics.

Information about a home visiting model: Users can find individual model pages by selecting Search for Models on the home page under the Models drop-down menu or by using the quick search under “Get Started” on the home page. Study settings and participant characteristics are available on a model’s home page under the heading Research Characteristics. These characteristics describe research participants across manuscripts that received a rating of moderate or high.

HomVEE reports data describing the race and ethnicity of participants in home visiting research in accordance with federal standards. The standards allow for participants in research to select multiple race and ethnicity categories (for example, selecting both White and Hispanic) and for manuscript authors to report that information in a way that may sum to greater than 100 percent.