The Missouri Institute of Mental Health (MIMH), the St. Louis Science Center (SLSC), and Pathways to Promise: Interfaith Ministries and Prolonged Mental Illness (Pathways) propose to form an educational partnership to promote scientific literacy about mental and addictive disorders in St. Louis and throughout Missouri and the Midwest, specifically targeting audiences not traditionally receptive to science education efforts. This goal will be accomplished by establishing a mental health exhibit center as part of the """"""""MedTech"""""""" Gallery at the St. Louis Center, potentially educating approximately two million people each year about the neuroscience foundations of mental and addictive disorders. However, to expand this educational effort beyond St. Louis and to audiences heretofore not responsive to learning science facts and methods, a traveling exhibit will be developed, essentially paralleling the exhibit at the Science Center. This exhibit will be maintained, promoted, scheduled, and managed by Pathways to Promise, a national interfaith task force based in St. Louis and associated with MIMH. Pathways represents eighteen individual faith groups and has frequent requests for educational exhibits that will educate faith communities about the causes and consequences of mental illness. The two exhibits that are developed will focus on six content areas: Affective disorders and suicide; Alcoholism; Cognitive dysfunction; Schizophrenia; Substance abuse and addiction; and the Epidemiology of mental illness. The displays will involve extensive use of interactive videodisc technology and exhibit visitors will become actively engaged in learning about the scientific basis for mental illness and addiction. The traveling exhibit will be scheduled for presentations at malls and shopping centers in conjunction with events like Mental Health Awareness Month. However, the primary outreach effort will be toward religious communities, and the exhibit will be on display at national and state denominational meetings. A rigorous evaluation will be conducted to assess the impact of both the Science Center exhibit and the traveling exhibit. We will evaluate the quality of the partnership and the exhibits, and will further assess the extent to which our intervention was successful in enhancing knowledge and changing attitudes about mental and addictive disorders.
