Karen A. Patte

Dr. Karen A. Patte is the Canada Research Chair in Child Health Equity and Inclusion and an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Sciences at Brock University.

Dr. Patte’s research focuses youth health and equity, with a particular focus on mental health and ill-health. Her research program aims to advance understanding of how different contexts and exposures shape health trajectories over time, to inform more effective and equitable preventative practice, policy, and programs.

With training in the health sciences, psychology, public health, and counselling, and collaborating across varied disciplines, her research draws from multiple approaches. Primary methods and designs include longitudinal population-level surveys, mixed and multi-methods, youth engagement, Integrated Knowledge Mobilization, and quasi-experimental designs.

She has published over 100+ peer-reviewed research articles on youth health and leads several related grants with pan-Canadian research teams, including funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), SickKids Foundation, and the New Frontiers in Research Fund.

She is the Co-Principal Investigator of the Cannabis, Obesity, Mental health, Physical activity, Alcohol, Smoking, and Sedentary behaviour (COMPASS) Study (www.compass.uwaterloo.ca) with Dr. Scott Leatherdale. COMPASS Is an ongoing prospective cohort study that annually collects data from over 70,000 Canadian secondary schools and the 130+ secondary schools they attend. COMPASS uses a hierarchical quasi-experimental design to evaluate how programs, policies, and built environments impact various youth health behaviours, outcomes, and correlates (e.g., substance use, mental health, eating behaviours, physical activity, screen use, sleep, bullying and discrimination, school connectedness) over time.