Background: The aim of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of home visiting programmes on the uptake of childhood immunization.
Methods: A systematic review was carried out of the literature of controlled studies evaluating home visiting programmes involving at least one post-natal visit, which included tasks within the remit of British health visiting and reporting outcomes relevant to British health visiting. Eleven studies were considered, nine of which used socio-economically disadvantaged families. The outcome measure was uptake of a range of childhood immunizations.
Results: Eleven studies reported uptake of immunization. Effect sizes from nine studies were included in the meta-analysis. Fixed effects models demonstrated a significant effect of home visiting for all studies and also for several subgroups of studies, but with significant heterogeneity of effect sizes. A random effects model failed to demonstrate an effect of home visiting.
Conclusions: Home visiting programmes have not been shown to be effective in increasing the uptake of immunization. Other methods of increasing uptake and reducing inequalities in uptake will need to be explored.