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Mental Health Client-Level Data (MH-CLD)

The Mental Health Client-Level Data (MH-CLD) system works with states to collect data on the demographic, clinical, and outcome characteristics of individuals receiving mental health treatment services. MH-CLD helps SAMHSA and state-level agencies understand the mental health needs and available services.

Data Source

Details

The Mental Health Client-Level Data (MH-CLD) and the Mental Health Treatment Episode Data Set (MH-TEDS) systems provide information on mental health diagnoses and the mental health treatment services, outcomes, and demographic and substance use characteristics of individuals in mental health treatment facilities that report to individual state administrative data systems.

Data files are made available by SAMHSA for research and statistical purposes. Along with codebooks and questionnaires, ASCII, SAS, SPSS, Stata, R, and TSV files are shared for public use. Read more here.

The data from MH-CLD and MH-TEDS are for individuals receiving mental health treatment services provided or funded through state mental health agencies (SMHAs). SMHAs are the state entities with primary responsibility for reporting the data.

MH-TEDS is focused on treatment events, such as admissions and discharges from service centers. Admission and discharge records can be linked to track treatment episodes and the treatment services received by individuals. Thus, with MH-TEDS, both the individual client and the treatment episode can serve as a unit of analysis. In contrast, with MH-CLD, the client is the sole unit of analysis.

MH-TEDS enhances the ability to report data on people with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders. MH-TEDS also offers optional data fields for individuals with mental illness that are not captured in MH-CLD, such as referral source, details on criminal justice referral, income sources, and health insurance.

The same set of mental health disorders for National Outcome Measures (NOMs) enumerated under MH-CLD is also supported by MH-TEDS. Thus, while both MH-TEDS and MH-CLD collect similar client-level data, the collection method differs.

Please note, the data do not include all individuals receiving mental health treatment services.

Reports

Description: Annual reports are produced every year, presenting information from a single data source.
Location: National
Format: PDF

Description: The Annual Detailed Tables provide data on race, ethnicity, sex, and age of clients served. The MH-CLD data set can also observe these demographic categories across five National Outcome Measures (NOMs). These tables provide a comprehensive set of national, subgroup, and state-level data on key characteristics of individuals receiving treatment along with their mental health diagnoses and co-occurring disorders.
Location: National
Format: PDF

Resources

MH-CLD Data Crosswalk Template