Editorial: Home-Visiting Interventions and Caregiver Mental Health

The article "Home Visiting and Antenatal Depression Affect the Quality of Mother and Child Interactions in South Africa" by Christodoulou et al.¹ in the Journal presents findings from an important analysis of intervention effects among depressed and nondepressed mothers receiving the Philani home-visiting intervention² in South Africa. This article highlights three critical issues fundamental to the promise of home-visiting interventions to advance developmental potential for families with young children globally: 1) the opportunity to attend to caregiver mental health, 2) the need for more integrated interventions that expand on the platform of early childhood development (ECD) to address broader issues in the home environment (eg, poverty, malnutrition, family violence) that may contribute to caregiver and child well-being overall, and 3) the promise of implementation science to study both effectiveness and implementation questions simultaneously.