The effect of home visiting programmes on uptake of childhood immunization: a systematic review and meta-analysis

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.