National Standards on Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) in Health Care are Published

The Office of Minority Health announced the publication of the final national standards on CLAS in health care, printed in the December 22, 2000 Federal Register. The publication followed a 120-day comment period on draft standards in 2000 and revisions to the standards.

A comprehensive final report on the project, National Standards on Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) in Health Care Final Report, was completed in March 2001. The final report describing 14 individual standards and outlines of the development, methodology and analysis undertaken to create the national standards can be found online at: http://www.omhrc.gov/omh/programs/2pgprograms/finalreport.pdf. To view the Executive Summary click here.

As a part of the public comments received on the publication of the final version of the National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) in Health Care, several requests were made from health care organizations (HCOs) and providers for the development of a step-by-step guide* to facilitate the implementation of the CLAS standards. To view the guide now in progress visit http://www.omhrc.gov/clas/guideintro.htm