Data from the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) can facilitate the state, regional, and county tracking of key mental health indicators, including mental health services, service use, unmet need for services, and mental health-related functioning. The purpose of this study is to examine CHIS data from 2011 to 2013 to facilitate state, regional, and county tracking of key mental health indicators. The indicators that authors examine include need for mental health services, service use, unmet need for services, and mental health-related functioning. Authors chose CHIS indicators that could be useful to routinely monitor for statewide and county-level planning and improvement of prevention and early intervention (PEI) strategies.

Findings:

• Mental health issues seemed to more adversely affect California women, as compared with men. Women in the state had slightly higher rates of serious psychological distress than men did, and women in turn had much higher rates of mental health or substance use service utilization than men did. California women were more likely than men to get help for a mental health or substance use issue. Despite this higher rate of service utilization, California women were still somewhat more likely to have unmet need
• Latino and Black Californians exhibited the highest mental health disparities in the state. Both groups had somewhat higher rates of serious psychological distress, compared with white Californians, as well as higher rates of unmet need for mental health or substance use services (10–11% among these diverse groups, versus 8% among whites). Latino and Black Californians also have higher rates of serious psychological distress.
• Compared with adults ages 25–64, young adults ages 18–24 had somewhat higher rates of unmet need for mental health or substance use service sand were somewhat more likely to report severe impairment in work or daily.

Findings suggest that in an environment of limited resources, mental health program planning and policymaking in California may benefit from a focus on improving outcomes for women, Latino and black Californians, and young adults.