DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A 2.5 year project is proposed to establish the psychometric properties of a newly developed scale, the Cultural Competency (CC) Assessment Scale (CCAS), an organizational level instrument that measures the cultural competence of a behavioral health care organization. Based on the widely held belief that culturally competent health care will act to ameliorate the documented problems cultural groups experience in their access to, receipt of and outcomes of treatment, a scale that measures the CC of an organization could monitor progress towards attainment of CC, and proactively promote the implementation of activities that increase CC. The scale was developed with stakeholder involvement from multicultural groups based on prior work of the field and the research team. The endorsement of the scale, however, requires scientific based evidence that it is reliable and valid. In collaboration with Coordinated Care Services Inc., a NYS Monroe County Behavioral health care management company used by Monroe County OMH to manage its contract agencies, CCAS ratings will be made at 27 outpatient service sites that serve significant numbers of Latinos and African Americans. Setting raters will rate their own site as well as written scenarios of over 30 other sites, and an expert rater will rate all sites. These data will be used to examine inter-rater reliability, accuracy, and construct validity. The service data of two consecutive client cohorts of new admissions in a year (approximately 8,000 persons/year), and of a service user cohort (approximately 25,000 persons/year), obtained from a computerized information system maintained by CCIS, will be used to measure predictive validity by examining whether higher levels of CC predict lower rates of service disparities between minority and majority population groups.