معرفی
Selena E. Ortiz is an Associate Professor of Health Policy and Administration and Demography at The Pennsylvania State University's College of Health and Human Development. She holds affiliations with the Center for Health Care and Policy Research (CHCPR), the Population Research Institute (PRI), the Rock Ethics Institute, and the School of Public Policy at Penn State. Additionally, she serves as a research fellow at the FrameWorks Institute in Washington, D.C., and is an active member of AcademyHealth, the Interdisciplinary Association of Population Health Science (IAPHS), and the American Public Health Association (APHA), where she currently chairs the Ethics Section.
Dr. Ortiz received her academic training from prestigious institutions:
- B.A. in Sociology from The University of California, Berkeley
- M.P.H. from The University of Arizona's Mel & Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health
- Ph.D. from The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Jonathan & Karin Fielding School of Public Health (2013)
Her research program addresses health disparities and improves health equity within the context of chronic disease and the social determinants of health. Dr. Ortiz examines health and social policy formation while investigating access to health services and outcomes through diverse methodologies including semi-structured interviews, qualitative and quantitative content analysis, topic modeling, population-based online survey experiments, and econometric methods. Her work has been published in leading journals such as Public Health Reports, Preventive Medicine, the American Journal of Public Health, Medical Care, Social Science & Medicine, and JAMA.
Analysis of Dr. Ortiz's recent publications reveals a strong focus on addressing systemic health inequities through policy interventions. Her research spans several interconnected domains including racial/ethnic disparities in kidney donation, housing policy as a social determinant of health, digital health communication strategies to reduce disparities, and the influence of religious identity on health policy preferences. A distinctive feature of her scholarship is the theoretical focus on identifying processes of health inequity from policy formation to implementation.
Dr. Ortiz has received significant recognition for her work:
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholar at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies
- Member of the Alpha Nu Chapter of Delta Omega, the National Public Health Honor Society
- Current chair of APHA's Ethics Section
Dr. Ortiz has secured substantial research funding, most notably as Co-Principal Investigator on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation project 'Studying the impact of Pittsburgh's mobility voucher and counseling programs on low-income racial minority's access to opportunity-rich neighborhoods' (2017-2023). Her research program demonstrates a strong commitment to translating scholarship into practical interventions that address health disparities. As a Graduate Faculty member, she mentors students in health policy and administration, focusing on research methods and health equity frameworks. Her current projects examine housing voucher participation, social network interventions for kidney donation equity, and the impact of digital media on health disparities.
Dr. Ortiz is actively involved with several research centers and networks including the Center for Health Care and Policy Research, the Population Research Institute, and the FrameWorks Institute. Her collaborative work spans multiple disciplines, connecting public health, policy analysis, sociology, and behavioral economics to address complex health equity challenges. Her current research team includes collaborators from various institutions working on housing policy experiments, kidney donation disparity interventions, and digital health communication analyses.
