As the 21st century begins, women may be approaching equality, but mothers are still far behind. (Ann Crittenden,

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act established the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program, which provides $1.5 billion to states over 5 years for home visiting program models serving at-risk pregnant women and children from birth to age 5. The act stipulates that 75% of the funds must be used for programs with evidence of effectiveness based on rigorous evaluation research. Home Visiting Evidence of Effectiveness reviewed the home visiting research literature and provided an assessment of the evidence of effectiveness for program models that serve families with pregnant women and children from birth to age 5. METHODS: Home Visiting Evidence of Effectiveness included a systematic search and screening process, a review of the research quality, and an assessment of program effectiveness. Reviewers rated studies’ capacity to provide unbiased estimates of program impacts and determined whether a program met the Department of Health and Human Services’ criteria for an evidence-based model. RESULTS: As of July 2012, 32 models were reviewed, of which 12 met the Department of Health and Human Services criteria. Most of these models were shown to have favorable effects on child development. Other common favorable effects included health care usage and reductions in child maltreatment. Less common were favorable effects on birth outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: Home visiting is a promising way to serve families who may be difficult to engage in supportive services. Existing rigorous research indicates that home visiting has the potential for positive results among high-risk families, particularly on health care usage and child development.

Although the economic effects of divorce have been well studied, a similar exploration of cohabitation has not been conducted. For this analysis, we use a sample from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N = 2,372) documenting changes in economic well‐being at the end of a cohabiting relationship and comparing these results to a sample of divorced respondents. After dissolution, formerly cohabiting men's economic standing declines moderately, whereas formerly cohabiting women's declines much more precipitously, leaving a substantial proportion of women in poverty. This effect is particularly pronounced for African American and Hispanic women. Though the end of the relationship does reinforce gender stratification, it is also an “equalizer” between married and cohabiting women, leaving them in strikingly similar economic positions.

Evaluation research and systematic reviews would benefit from reporting guidelines for external validity to ensure that key information is reported across studies.