Dr. Douglas Manuel

Biography

Dr. Doug Manuel is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and cross-appointed to the School of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Ottawa. He is also Senior Scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, a Senior Investigator at the Bruyère Health Research Institute, and a Senior Core Scientist at ICES.

Dr. Manuel is a Medical Doctor with a Masters in Epidemiology and Royal College specialization in Public Health and Preventive Medicine. He completed his medical degree at Dalhousie University and then worked as a general practitioner in northern and remote communities across Canada. He was the chief of staff of the hospital at Churchill, Manitoba, serving the remote Inuit communities that lined the eastern shore of Hudson Bay. He came to realize during these years that to truly make an impact on the health of his patients he needed to address underlying, preventable causes. He returned to study public health and epidemiology at the University of Toronto. During his residency training he began his research career, which continues to address the same themes that arose during his earlier clinical practice.

Dr. Manuel has published more than 300 peer-reviewed articles and practiced as a primary care doctor in rural, remote, and underserved Canadian communities for more than 25 years. His research uses linked population health data, predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to support disease prevention. He assesses the real-world effectiveness of strategies and interventions. He performs two types of studies: modelling studies or "what if” studies that examine the potential impact of interventions; and observational or "what is" studies that examine the actual impact of interventions that are provided routinely in our society or that are experimentally tested. Modelling studies are supported by advanced predictive algorithms and microsimulation models that he and his colleagues develop using Canada’s large, routinely-collected health data. Dr. Manuel’s studies typically focus on prevention, such as healthy living and his team has developed several risk prediction tools that are available to the public through projectbiglife.ca.

He co-teaches EPI 5143 (Epidemiological Research Using Large Databases) and EPI 7913 (Introduction to Machine Learning). He supervises master's, doctoral and postdoctoral trainees, as well as public health and preventive medicine residents.

His life expectancy is 92 years and, according to projectbiglife.ca, he will breathe 1.3 million litres of air. His favourite physical activity is biking to Champlain Lookout at Gatineau Park.