Dr. Manuel's research interests span public health, health care systems, and primary care. His overarching research question is how to most effectively improve the health of communities and reduce inequities. He works in multidisciplinary teams to assess the real-world effectiveness of strategies and interventions. Collaborations perform two types of studies: modeling studies or "what if” studies that examine the effect of health risks and benefit 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 being tested. His studies typically focus on prevention such as immunization and healthy living. He also performs supporting studies that describe or predict future health and health care use. For over 25 years, he have been a primary care doctor in rural, remote and underserved Canadian communities.