This article describes a 20-year program of research on the Nurse Home Visitation Program, a model in which nurses visit mothers beginning during pregnancy and continuing through their children's second birthdays to improve pregnancy outcomes, to promote children's health and development, and to strengthen families' economic self-sufficiency. The results of two randomized trials (one in Elmira, New York, and the second in Memphis, Tennessee) are summarized, and an ongoing trial in Denver, Colorado, is briefly described. Results of the Elmira and Memphis trials suggest the following: The program benefits the neediest families (low-income unmarried women) but provides little benefit for the broader population. Among low-income unmarried women, the program helps reduce rates of childhood injuries and ingestions that may be associated with child abuse and neglect, and helps mothers defer subsequent pregnancies and move into the workforce. Long-term follow-up of families in Elmira indicates that nurse-visited mothers were less likely to abuse or neglect their children or to have rapid successive pregnancies. Having fewer children enabled women to find work, become economically self-sufficient, and eventually avoid substance abuse and criminal behavior. Their children benefitted too. By the time the children were 15 years of age, they had had fewer arrests and convictions, smoked and drank less, and had had fewer sexual partners. The program produced few effects on children's development or on birth outcomes, except for children born to women who smoked cigarettes when they registered during pregnancy. The positive effects of the program on child abuse and injuries to children were most pronounced among mothers who, at registration, had the lowest psychological resources (defined as high levels of mental health symptoms, limited intellectual functioning, and little belief in their control of their lives). Generally, effects in Elmira were of greater magnitude and covered a broader range of outcomes than in Memphis, perhaps because of differences between the populations studied, community contexts, or a higher rate of turnover among home visitors in Memphis than in Elmira. The article concludes that the use of nurses as home visitors is key; that services should be targeted to the neediest populations, rather than being offered on a universal basis; that clinically tested methods of changing health and behavioral risks should be incorporated into program protocols; and that services must be implemented with fidelity to the model tested if program benefits found in scientifically controlled studies are to be reproduced as the program is replicated in new communities.

We evaluated a comprehensive program of prenatal and postpartum nurse home visitation for socially disadvantaged women bearing first children. Eighty-five per cent of the participating women were either teenagers (< 19 years at registration), unmarried, or of low socioeconomic status. Women were randomly assigned to either nurse home visitation or comparison services (free transportation for prenatal and well-child care and/or sensory and developmental screening for the child). During the first four years after

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A program of prenatal and infancy home visitation by nurses was tested as a method of preventing a wide range of health and developmental problems in children born to primiparas who were either teenagers, unmarried, or of low socioeconomic status. Among the women at highest risk for care-giving dysfunction, those who were visited by a nurse had fewer instances of verified child abuse and neglect during the first 2 years of their children's lives (P = .07); they were observed in their homes to restrict and punish their children less frequently, and they provided more appropriate play materials; their babies were seen in the emergency room less frequently during the first year of life. During the second year of life, the babies of all nurse-visited women, regardless of the families' risk status, were seen in the emergency room fewer times, and they were seen by physicians less frequently for accidents and poisonings than comparison group babies (P ≤ .05 for all findings, except where indicated.) Treatment differences for child abuse and neglect and emergency room visits were more significant among women who had a lower sense of control over their lives.