Colleen Metge, BSc(Pharm), PhD

Dr. Colleen Metge is an associate professor in community health sciences at Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Manitoba.

After graduation with a bachelor of science in pharmacy in 1975, she worked front-line pharmacy (hospital and community) and then with the professional organization of pharmacists in BC, she enrolled in a doctoral program in pharmaceutical policy at the University of Maryland in Baltimore in 1990.

On obtaining her PhD with an emphasis on epidemiology and economics, Dr. Metge accepted a position at the University of Manitoba, where she stayed as a tenured associate professor in pharmacy until 2009 teaching ethics, epidemiology, economics and pharmacy administration and undertaking a myriad of health services research.

Her research experience and expertise is broad; mostly, Dr. Metge is a methodologist who relishes helping students and others in conceptualizing the best approach to answering a research question.

In 2009, Colleen left the College of Pharmacy to take the position of director, research and evaluation with the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority (WRHA).

Before her retirement from the WRHA in June 2017, Colleen managed an embedded research unit of 12 PhD/masters level colleagues who provide health services research and evaluation to Winnipeg’s health authority and the province of Manitoba.

She continues in her role as research scientist and professor at the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy and the department of community health sciences, Max Rady College of Medicine, University of Manitoba.

Currently, she is affiliated with the Odette School of Business (University of Windsor) in supply chain management and with Women’s College Research Institute in prescribing optimization.

In addition, Dr. Metge has served as both chair and committee member on the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research’s Innovation to Commercialization grant review committee; she also reviews applications for Research Manitoba’s Innovation Proof-of-Concept grants.

Over the past 20 years, Dr. Metge has been principal investigator, co-pi or co-applicant on 30 grants totalling $20.2 million, including the 5-year $1.9 million PATHS: Equity for Children CIHR Programmatic Grant in Health and Health Equity awarded to the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy. Seventeen of the grants were awarded in the last 10 years while not directly employed in academia.

She has published over 110 peer-reviewed articles.

She has conducted various population-level analyses at the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy, including:

• appropriate use of pharmaceuticals
• pharmaceutical use by older adults
• pharmaceutical use in mental illness

Dr. Metge has also completed 17 evaluation reports for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority/Province of Manitoba.