The Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation (MIHOPE)-Strong Start

Project

Overview

Project Overview

Adverse birth outcomes result in significant emotional and economic costs for families and communities. One promising avenue for helping expectant women is home visiting programs, which work with parents to promote prenatal care and improve infant health. The Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation-Strong Start (MIHOPE-Strong Start) will evaluate the effectiveness of two evidence-based home visiting models (Healthy Families America and Nurse-Family Partnership) at improving birth outcomes. It is a large-scale evaluation designed to investigate the features of local programs and of home visitation that lead to improved birth outcomes and reduced health care costs for expectant families enrolled in Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

The evaluation is part of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation’s Strong Start for Mothers and Newborns initiative, which has cooperative agreements with three other types of prenatal interventions to improve birth outcomes.

MIHOPE-Strong Start is closely integrated with MIHOPE, a study of four evidence-based home visiting models funded by the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program. MIHOPE-Strong Start will include programs funded by MIECHV as well as those with other funding sources.

One-Page Project Description | Sign up for the MIHOPE/MIHOPE-Strong Start Newsletter

National home visiting model developers for Healthy Families America and Nurse-Family Partnership support MIHOPE-Strong Start and encouraged local program sites to participate in the study.

STATUS: Current

Basics

Issue: Health, Families with Children

Focus Area: Health, Family Relationships

Population: Families, Populations with Low Incomes

Focus Population: Children 0-5, Single-Parent Families

Locations: California, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin

Intervention: Home Visiting

Register Now: January 19 Webinar on Accessing Data from the Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluations

On January 19, the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research; the federal Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; and MDRC are hosting a free webinar about accessing and using data files from the Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation (MIHOPE) and MIHOPE-Strong Start.

Report

The Effects of Home Visiting on Prenatal Health, Birth Outcomes, and Health Care Use in the First Year of Life

Final Implementation and Impact Findings from the Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation-Strong Start

MIHOPE-Strong Start rigorously examined the effects of home visiting services, as provided by 66 local programs in 17 states, on outcomes such as low birth weight, preterm birth, and infant health care use. This final report details those effects as well as the services received by families in the programs.

Overview »

Full

Brief

A Summary of Results from the MIHOPE and MIHOPE-Strong Start Studies of Evidence-Based Home Visiting

Home visiting provides information, resources, and support to expectant low-income parents and low-income families with young children. This brief summarizes reports from two national studies of early childhood home visiting.

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Agenda, Scope, <br> & Goals

Agenda, Scope, and Goals

MIHOPE-Strong Start will provide federal and state policymakers better information about how evidence-based home visiting models affect preterm births and other birth outcomes. Information from MIHOPE-Strong Start is expected to inform policies and services for expectant families and to influence Medicaid reimbursement criteria.

MIHOPE-Strong Start will include up to 4,000 expectant mothers who are enrolled in Medicaid or CHIP. The study is taking place across 17 states, including those involved in MIHOPE where Healthy Families America and Nurse-Family Partnership models are operating.

MIHOPE-Strong Start is part of the Strong Start for Mothers and Newborns initiative. The overall goals are to determine whether home visiting programs improve birth outcomes and reduce health care costs in the child’s first year. To accomplish this, the study includes:

An impact analysis to measure what difference home visiting programs make in maternal prenatal health, health care use, preterm births and other birth outcomes, and infant health and health care use.

An implementation analysis that will describe the families who participate and examine how the program models operate in their local and state contexts.

STATUS: Current

Basics

Issue: Health, Families with Children

Focus Area: Health, Family Relationships

Population: Families, Populations with Low Incomes

Focus Population: Children 0-5, Single-Parent Families

Locations: California, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin

Intervention: Home Visiting

Register Now: January 19 Webinar on Accessing Data from the Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluations

Report

The Effects of Home Visiting on Prenatal Health, Birth Outcomes, and Health Care Use in the First Year of Life

Final Implementation and Impact Findings from the Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation-Strong Start

Overview »

Full

Brief

A Summary of Results from the MIHOPE and MIHOPE-Strong Start Studies of Evidence-Based Home Visiting

Overview »

Full

Design, Sites, & <br> Data Sources

Design, Sites, and Data Sources

MIHOPE-Strong Start, like MIHOPE, will use a random assignment research design, with part of the sample assigned to a home visiting program and part assigned to a control group. The study expands on MIHOPE in several ways:

MIHOPE is operating in 12 states; MIHOPE-Strong Start will include those 12 states as well as 5 additional states.
Families recruited for MIHOPE will be expecting a baby or have a child up to 6 months old; MIHOPE-Strong Start is targeting expectant mothers who are up to 32 weeks pregnant and enrolled in Medicaid, given the study’s focus on birth outcomes.
MIHOPE will assess the effects of the programs on a variety of child and parent outcomes; MIHOPE-Strong Start will focus on prenatal health and birth outcomes.

Data will be collected from multiple sources, including surveys; state Medicaid, CHIP, and vital records databases; and program service records kept by local home visiting programs.

The research team will complete enrollment of families into the study in September 2015. Three annual reports will be produced, followed by a final report. The first annual report was published December 2013 and the second January 2015.

STATUS: Current

Basics

Issue: Health, Families with Children

Focus Area: Health, Family Relationships

Population: Families, Populations with Low Incomes

Focus Population: Children 0-5, Single-Parent Families

Locations: California, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin

Intervention: Home Visiting

Register Now: January 19 Webinar on Accessing Data from the Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluations

Report

The Effects of Home Visiting on Prenatal Health, Birth Outcomes, and Health Care Use in the First Year of Life

Final Implementation and Impact Findings from the Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation-Strong Start

Overview »

Full

Brief

A Summary of Results from the MIHOPE and MIHOPE-Strong Start Studies of Evidence-Based Home Visiting

Overview »

Full

Funders & <br />Partners

Funders

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Partners

James Bell Associates

Johns Hopkins University

Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.

MDRC Staff

Virginia Knox
President
Virginia Knox became President of MDRC on October 15, 2019. Prior to being named president, Knox served as vice president and as leader of the organization’s Families and Children Policy Area.
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Charles Michalopoulos
Chief Economist
Michalopoulos is MDRC’s chief economist and directs the Youth Employment, Criminal Justice, and Employment Policy Area. He has more than three decades of experience studying a wide variety of social policies to help low-income families achieve better economic, health, and social outcomes.
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JoAnn Hsueh
Director, Family Well-Being and Children’s Development
JoAnn Hsueh is the director of MDRC’s Family Well-Being and Children’s Development policy area, bringing expertise in the development of young children, early childhood education.

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Desiree Principe Alderson
Senior Associate, Family Well-Being and Children’s Development
Alderson is currently the data manager for the Get Ready Guilford Initiative, which is a county-wide initiative to improve outcomes for children in Guilford, North Carolina.
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Dina A. R. Israel
Senior Associate, Youth Development, Criminal Justice, and Employment
Israel is one of MDRC’s senior field liaisons and technical assistance team members, as well as a project director.
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Erika Lundquist
Senior Associate, MDRC Center for Data Insights
Lundquist currently serves as project director for the Optimizing Texting Technology through Engagement Research with Students (OTTERS) project.
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Electra Small
Senior Associate, Family Well-Being and Children’s Development
As a technical manager, Small takes a lead role in every aspect of a project’s technical work, including data acquisition, security, verification, cleaning, imputation, and analyses.

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Rebecca Behrmann
Operations Associate, Youth Development, Criminal Justice, and Employment
Behrmann has more than 15 years of experience in the implementation of large-scale research studies.
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Anne Warren
Research Associate, Family Well-Being and Children’s Development
Warren has 10 years of experience processing and analyzing quantitative data from programs focused on health care and employment.
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Samantha Xia
Research Associate, Family Well-Being and Children’s Development
Xia joined MDRC in 2014 and focuses on data collection, management, and analysis. She has held lead roles on several home visiting projects, including implementation and impact studies. She currently serves as the lead analyst and data manager for the Child First Randomized Controlled Trial.
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Kelly Saunders
Research Associate, Family Well-Being and Children’s Development
Saunders joined MDRC in June 2016 as a technical analyst for the federally funded Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation (MIHOPE).
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Ilana Blum
Deputy Operating Director, Family Well-Being and Children’s Development
Blum currently serves as the resource manager for Variations in Implementation of Quality Interventions and two projects housed under the Expanding Children’s Early Learning Network (ExCEL), as well as other projects within the Families and Children policy area.
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Jessica Kopsic
Research Associate, MDRC Center for Applied Behavioral Science
Kopsic is a data manager and programmer in MDRC’s Center for Applied Behavioral Science, where she currently works on the Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency-Next Generation project, in particular on the project’s text message-based intervention for families in the child welfare system.

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Caroline Mage
Research Associate, Youth Development, Criminal Justice, and Employment
Mage is currently the deputy project director for a large-scale federal project, Building Evidence on Employment Strategies. She specializes in the implementation and management of projects focused on individuals and families with low incomes.
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Helen Lee
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Project Director

Publications & Resources

COMPLETE LIST OF PUBLICATIONS

Report

The Effects of Home Visiting on Prenatal Health, Birth Outcomes, and Health Care Use in the First Year of Life

Final Implementation and Impact Findings from the Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation-Strong Start

01/2019

Helen Lee, Sarah Crowne, Melanie Estarziau, Keith Kranker, Charles Michalopoulos, Anne Warren, Tod Mijanovich, Jill H. Filene, Anne Duggan, Virginia Knox

Overview »

Full

Brief

A Summary of Results from the MIHOPE and MIHOPE-Strong Start Studies of Evidence-Based Home Visiting

01/2019

Charles Michalopoulos, Sarah Crowne, Ximena Portilla, Helen Lee, Jill H. Filene, Anne Duggan, Virginia Knox

Overview »

Full

Report

Promoting Prenatal Health and Positive Birth Outcomes

A Snapshot of State Efforts

12/2017

Mariel Sparr, Alexandra Joraanstad, Grace Atukpawu-Tipton, Nicole Miller, Julie Leis, Jill H. Filene

The Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation-Strong Start (MIHOPE-Strong Start) aims to determine whether home visiting programs improve birth- and health-related outcomes up to age 1. This report provides a snapshot of state efforts to promote prenatal health and improve birth outcomes, including but not limited to home visiting.

Overview »

Full

Report

An Early Look at Families and Local Programs in the Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation-Strong Start

Third Annual Report

04/2016

Helen Lee, Sarah Crowne, Kristen Faucetta , Rebecca Behrmann

MIHOPE-Strong Start is the largest random assignment study to date examining the effects of home visiting services on birth and health outcomes and health care use. This report describes a partial sample of 1,200 families, explores the priorities and practices of the study programs, and discusses program recruitment.

Overview »

Full

Report

Cheaper, Faster, Better: Are State Administrative Data the Answer?

The Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation-Strong Start Second Annual Report

01/2015

Helen Lee, Anne Warren, Lakhpreet Gill

Policymakers have increasingly encouraged greater use of administrative data to produce timely, rigorous, and lower-cost evaluations of health and social programs. This report details MIHOPE-Strong Start’s process of acquiring administrative vital records and Medicaid data from 20 states and more than 40 state agencies to measure health, health care use, and cost outcomes.

Overview »

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Project

STATUS: Current

Basics

STATUS: Current

Basics

STATUS: Current

Basics

COMPLETE LIST OF PUBLICATIONS

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