Increasing Home Visiting Enrollment through Enhanced Outreach
Author(s):
Robin Jacob, Megan Foster Friedman, Olivia Meeks
Abstract:
An updated version of this brief was published in the June 2024 issue of Social Service Review. View the article here: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/730140
Key Findings:
- Among families who were eligible for the Maternal Infant Health Program (MIHP), individuals who received enhanced outreach from a community health worker were nearly 12 percentage points more likely to enroll in MIHP than individuals receiving standard levels of MIHP outreach.
- Community health workers were more likely to reach MIHP-eligible families, made more contact attempts, and used multiple contact methods to successfully contact families.
- Many of the most effective elements of community health worker outreach could be adopted by MIHP agencies at relatively low cost and within existing staffing structures.
The findings from the pilot suggest that the increase in enrollment was driven mainly by CHWs’ ability to make more contact attempts, use more modalities, and attempt contact over a longer period than the standard outreach provided at participating agencies.” Page 9