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Welcome to Steve Manske's website. Dr. Steve Manske is a Scientist for the Propel Centre for Population Health Impact and a Research Associate Professor in Health Studies and Gerontology, in the faculty of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Waterloo. The Propel Centre for Population Health Impact is committed to preventing cancer and chronic disease by improving health at a population level, and reducing the impact of cancer on people who are affected.

Dr. Manske focuses on increasing the effective use of knowledge generated from science and practice. In collaboration with other researchers, decision-makers and students, he creates and tests tools and processes for knowledge synthesis, translation, and exchange, as well as evaluation. He trained at the University of Toronto (EdD in Adult Education) and University of Waterloo (MSc in Health Behaviour).

Dr. Manske heads Propel's Youth Health team with a goal of supporting communities with system models that enable them to pinpoint best opportunities to improve youth health, identify best intervention approaches and access intervention resources. He leads the development and implementation of the School Health Action, Planning and Evaluation System or SHAPES. SHAPES can collect health behaviour data from all students in a school, which can then be used to create a computer-generated “health profile” of the school. Data can also be aggregated regionally, provincially or national to identify trends and evaluate initiatives. SHAPES is currently used to aid intervention planning, evaluation, surveillance, and research (and integration of these activities) across Canada.

Current highlights of Dr. Manske’s work include directing the 2006-2007 Youth Smoking Survey (YSS). The fourth national survey of youth smoking, the 2006-2007 Youth Smoking Survey is collecting data in 324 schools (grades 5 to 12). Dr. Manske previously edited a technical report on the Youth Smoking Survey – 2002. A complementary survey conducted in New Brunswick will use SHAPES technology to survey all students, grades 5 to 12 regarding smoking, physical activity, healthy eating and mental health (200 schools, 80,000 students). Work is underway to validate a healthy eating module, and ensure its content is relevant to policy and program indicators needed in Canada and its provinces. Similar work is underway for indicators of youth cessation. Dr. Manske has also established a knowledge exchange project that builds capacity among community stakeholders (e.g., education, public health) to make use of SHAPES data.