Adoption of the National CLAS Standards by State Mental Health Agencies: A Nationwide Policy Analysis.

OBJECTIVE: This study reports the extent to which states have adopted the national culturally and linguistically appropriate services (CLAS) standards.

METHODS: Officials from public mental health agencies in the 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico were contacted between January and June 2016 to obtain information about adoption of CLAS standards in current policies. Each policy was coded through thematic analysis to determine its correspondence with any of the 14 national CLAS standards, which are grouped into three domains.

RESULTS: Officials from 47 states and territories (90%) responded. Eight states (17%) reported adopting all national CLAS standards. Ten (23%) had adopted no CLAS policies, five (12%) had adopted policies under one domain, three (7%) under two domains, and 25 (58%) under all three domains.

CONCLUSIONS: Most states do not have policies that meet all CLAS standards, raising questions about how CLAS standards should be adopted.