Monica A. Sweet and Mark I. Appelbaum (2004), 'Is Home Visiting an Effective Strategy? A Meta-Analytic Review of Home Visiting Programs for Families with Young Children', Child Development, 75, pp. 1435-56.

Home visiting programs have been providing services to families with young children in the United States for many years; the first published documentation dates back to the 1880s (Charity Organization Society, 1883). As of 1999, Gomby, Culross, and Behrman estimated that as many as 550,000 families were enrolled in the six programs they reviewed, and they estimated that thousands of home visiting programs exist in the United States alone. These programs are supported by millions of dollars from both public and private sources. The enormous number of families and financial resources involved justify a comprehensive quantitative evaluation, but only two meta-analyses concentrating solely on child abuse outcomes have been published (Guterman, 1999; Roberts, Kramer, & Suissa, 1996). This meta-analysis addresses a broader question of whether home visiting programs actually help families across a variety of outcomes.