Overview

The Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation (MIHOPE) is a longitudinal study of the effects of Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV)-funded home visiting on child and family outcomes. The overarching goal of MIHOPE is to learn whether families and children benefit from MIECHV-funded early childhood home visiting programs, and if so, how.

As of 2025, there have been four main phases to this study:

Phase 1: MIHOPE

MIHOPE began as the legislatively mandated evaluation of the MIECHV Program. This first phase included:

• a random assignment impact study examining the effects of home visiting programs on family and child outcomes in a broad range of outcome areas specified in the MIECHV authorizing legislation;
• an implementation study providing detailed information on the actual services provided to families and how those services vary depending on the characteristics of families, home visitors, local programs, other home visiting stakeholders, and communities;
• a cost analysis examining the financial costs of operating the programs and how those costs are related to impacts; and
• an analysis of the needs assessments that were provided by states and territories in their initial MIECHV applications and plans in 2010 and 2011.

From October 2012 to October 2015, a total of 4,229 women who were pregnant or had a child less than six months old entered the study. Participants were randomly assigned to a MIECHV-funded local home visiting program or to a control group who received information about other appropriate services in the community.

Families were recruited through 88 local home visiting programs in 12 states: California, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Washington, and Wisconsin. Sites in the evaluation operated one of four models that met the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ criteria for evidence of effectiveness and were chosen by at least 10 states for their MIECHV programs in their 2010-2011 plans: Early Head Start — Home-based option, Healthy Families America, Nurse-Family Partnership, and Parents as Teachers.

The MIHOPE Report to Congress, which included the analysis of the states’ and territories’ needs assessments and baseline data on the families, staff, and programs participating in MIHOPE, was delivered to Congress in February 2015.

Data collection for the first follow-up time point (when participating children were approximately 15 months old) was completed in 2017.

A report on implementation was released in 2018, and a report on impact and impact variation at the first follow-up time point was released in 2019. A report on cost was released in 2022.

Phase 2: MIHOPE Check-In

To maintain up-to-date contact information for families after the first follow-up time point, the MIHOPE Check-In project contacted families participating in MIHOPE when the children were approximately 2½- and 3½-years-old. MIHOPE Check-In also administered brief surveys to gather information on a small set of family and child outcomes.

Data collection for this phase began in September 2015 and concluded in June 2019

A report on findings was released in 2023.

Phase 3: MIHOPE Long-Term Follow-Up

The MIHOPE Long-Term Follow-Up project (MIHOPE-LT) was initiated in 2016 to design and conduct a follow-up study of participants in MIHOPE to examine the long-term effects of the MIECHV Program on children and families. A design report for this follow-up was released in 2021.

Data collection — including a parent survey, in-home activities with parents and children, and a teacher survey — was conducted from 2019 to 2022, when the children were in kindergarten or first grade.

A report on the longer-term impacts of home visiting on maternal, family, and child outcomes when the children were in kindergarten or first grade was released in 2025.

Phase 4: Elementary School Follow-Up (MIHOPE-3G)

The MIHOPE-3G project was initiated in 2022 to examine the long-term effects of MIECHV-funded home visiting on families and children when participating children are in elementary school. MIHOPE-3G will include a benefit-cost analysis of MIECHV-funded home visiting.