Selena E. Ortiz
The Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA 16802
Selena E. Ortiz, PhD, MPH, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Administration at The Pennsylvania State University. Her research is structured around two fundamental themes. First, Dr. Ortiz examines the causes of unequal access to health services and the consequences for health outcomes. Second, she examines the determinants of health and social policy formation, support, and adoption. Dr. Ortiz’ research in these areas has been published in high-impact journals (e.g., Health Affairs, American Journal of Public Health, Social Science & Medicine, American Journal of Preventive Medicine, and JAMA), has been funded by multiple agencies, involves original data collection, and incorporates diverse methodologies.
Dr. Ortiz is a faculty affiliate of the Population Research Institute (PRI), the Center for Health Care and Policy Research (CHCPR), and the Rock Ethics Institute at Penn State. She also holds a courtesy appointment with the School of Public Policy. Dr. Ortiz is an active member of AcademyHealth and the American Public Health Association (APHA) and was an elected member of the board of directors for the Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science (IAPHS). Currently, she serves on the editorial board of SSM-Population Health.
Prior to her appointment at Penn State, Dr. Ortiz was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholar at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies and a non-resident fellow at the ASH Center for Democracy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She received her PhD from the UCLA Jonathan & Karin Fielding School of Public Health in 2013. Dr. Ortiz also earned a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree from the Mel & Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health at the University of Arizona and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from the University of California Berkeley. She is a member of the Alpha Nu Chapter of Delta Omega, the National Public Health Honor Society.
- Ortiz, Selena E., Andrew Fenelon, and Yousef Chavehpour. 2024. “Increasing Landlord Participation in Housing Voucher Programs Using Asset-Framing: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment.” Health Affairs, 43(2): 287-296.
- Selena E. Ortiz, Ashton Verdery, & Jonathan Daw. Racial/Ethnic and Prior Willingness Disparities in Potential Living Kidney Donors’ Self-Assessed Responses to Advancing American Kidney Health Regulation. BMC Public Health, 2021, 20(1971): 1-11.
- Selena E. Ortiz, Joel E. Segel, & Linh Tran. Health Savings Plans and Disparities in Access to Care by Race and Ethnicity. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2021, 61(2): 149-310.