ReviewBMJ open2022
Variation in health visiting contacts for children in England: cross-sectional analysis of the 2-2½ year review using administrative data (Community Services Dataset, CSDS).
Review in BMJ open, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 19 citations in OpenAlex.
- Harnessing routinely collected data for the evaluation of early years interventions: insights from a scoping review of evaluation studies.International journal of population data science · 2026Article
- Time trends and area-level socioeconomic inequalities in early childhood development at 2-2.5 years old in England between 2019 and 2025: a local area ecological study.BMJ public health · 2026Article
- How does health visiting in the first year of life vary by family characteristics? A longitudinal analysis of administrative data.Journal of public health (Oxford, England) · 2025Article
- How should policymakers, funders, and research teams mobilize to build the evidence base on universal early years services?Primary health care research & development · 2024Article
- Data Resource Profile: A national linked mother-baby cohort of health, education and social care data in England (ECHILD-MB).International journal of epidemiology · 2024Article
- Local area variation in health visiting contacts across England for children under age 5: a cross-sectional analysis of administrative data in England 2018-2020.International journal of population data science · 2024Article
- Can administrative data be used to research health visiting in England? A completeness assessment of the Community Services Dataset.International journal of population data science · 2024Article
- Early child development in England: cross-sectional analysis of ASQInternational journal of population data science · 2024Article
- Article
- Lessons learned from using linked administrative data to evaluate the Family Nurse Partnership in England and Scotland.International journal of population data science · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 7 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveThe 2-2½ year universal health visiting review in England is a key time point for assessing child development and promoting school readiness. We aimed to ascertain which children were least likely to receive their 2-2½ year review and whether there were additional non-mandated contacts for children who missed this review. DESIGN, SETTING,
participantsCross-sectional analysis of the 2-2½ year review and additional health visiting contacts for 181 130 children aged 2 in England 2018/2019, stratified by ethnicity, deprivation, safeguarding vulnerability indicator and Looked After Child status. ANALYSIS: We used data from 33 local authorities submitting highly complete data on health visiting contacts to the Community Services Dataset. We calculated the percentage of children with a recorded 2-2½ year review and/or any additional health visiting contacts and average number of contacts, by child characteristic.
resultsThe most deprived children were slightly less likely to receive a 2-2½ year review than the least deprived children (72% vs 78%) and Looked After Children much less likely, compared with other children (44% vs 69%). When all additional contacts were included, the pattern was reversed (deprivation) or disappeared (Looked After children). A substantial proportion of all children (24%), children with a 'safeguarding vulnerability' (22%) and Looked After children (29%) did not have a record of either a 2-2½ year review or any other face-to-face contact in the year.
conclusionsA substantial minority of children aged 2 with known vulnerabilities did not see the health visiting team at all in the year. Some higher need children (eg, deprived and Looked After) appeared to be seeing the health visiting team but not receiving their mandated health review. Further work is needed to establish the reasons for this, and potential solutions. There is an urgent need to improve the quality of national health visiting data.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.