Developing Policy Questions to Guide Integration of Home Visiting and Other Early Childhood Data

Research BriefHealthOct 16 2019

Evidence-based home visiting programs exist in over half of the counties in the United States. Because home visiting programs aim to improve the health, education, and life circumstances of pregnant mothers and their children, they are a critical piece of the early childhood landscape. However, the data collected about these programs are siloed, making it difficult for policymakers to answer questions about programs’ short- and long-term benefits. Data within and across home visiting models are fragmented because each program uses different methods for storing and reporting outcomes. To address this problem, state leaders, with input from early childhood stakeholders, are developing integrated longitudinal data systems to connect data from home visiting and other early childhood programs, which will lead to a better understanding of the collective impact of these investments.

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The purpose of this resource is to provide examples of policy questions that state leaders can answer when home visiting data are combined with other early childhood data. These sample questions are organized according to the type of integration of home visiting data needed to answer them. Depending on the policy question(s) to be answered, home visiting data can be integrated in one of three ways:

  1. Across home visiting models
  2. With data from other early childhood services
  3. With longitudinal data, to examine impact on both short- and long-term child outcomes

The sample questions highlighted in this resource are intended to help spark conversations with stakeholders and inform planning efforts to integrate early childhood integrated data, inclusive of home visiting data at the state level.

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