Tetine Lynn Sentell, PhD

Professor

Interim Assistant Vice Provost for Research and Scholarship

tsentell@hawaii.edu | (808) 956-5781 | Biomed D-104M

Health Policy and Management

Academic Degrees

PhD (Health Services and Policy Analysis), University of California, Berkeley
MA (Political Science), University of California, Berkeley
MA (Experimental Psychology), Hollins University
BA (English Literature), Middlebury College

Courses Taught

View Curriculum Vitae

Awards & Honors

Best Personal Academic Websites Winner for Best Research Lab/Group Website: The Public Health Resonance Project (2025)
Public Health Hero, Hawai‘i Public Health Association (2020)
ISPOR 20th Annual European Congress Research Presentation Award Finalist (2018)
Fulbright Specialist, University of Medicine, Tirana/Institute of Public Health, Albania (2017)
Best Abstract in Patient Centered Outcomes Research. AcademyHealth Research Conference, June 2015 (2015)
Board of Regents’ Medal for Excellence in Teaching, University of Hawai`i at Mānoa (2013)

Research Interests

Dr. Sentell is an internationally recognized scholar with over 30 years of research experience in understanding and addressing health inequities from strengths-based perspectives. Dr. Sentell has published over 130 papers and led projects from the National Institutes of Health, the Hawai‘i Department of Health, and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality among other funders. Dr. Sentell also has proven executive and managerial leadership in academic units, programs, and extramurally-funded projects and in supervising multidisciplinary teams in local, national, and global collaborations and innovative academic programming. Dr. Sentell has served as Interim Dean for the Thompson School, the Department Chair/Director for the Department of Public Health Sciences (DPHS), the Principal Investigator of the Hawai‘i Public Health Workforce Catalyst Lab, a Fulbright Specialist in Tirana, Albania, and was selected for the UH Board of Regents’ Medal for Excellence in Teaching. Dr. Tetine Sentell served as the inaugural Chin Sik & Hyun Sook Chung Endowed Chair in Public Health Studies in DPHS and co-founded the Public Health Resonance Project. She has served in a World Health Organization expert role, on the Editorial Board of Health Promotion International, as a Senior Scientist with the Queen’s Health Systems, as a member of the ASPPH Research Advisory Committee, and as the academic lead of a collaborative social media campaign to amplify perspectives of the youth of Hawaiʻi across diverse languages. Her research has focused on untangling the complex relationship between health inequities and multi-layered factors of influence, including how community-level strengths can achieve public health goals, how social networks can support and sustain health literacy, and how narrative perspectives coupled with public health surveillance systems analyses and health services research can illuminate meaningful pathways to address health inequities.

Selected Publications

Sentell T, Kostareva U, Taira DA, Tolentino NK, Polovina Y, Kreif T, Sumibcay JRC, Dela Cruz MR. Health literacy and the Pacific: a scoping literature review of journal articles. Public Health. 2026, 250:106051. doi:10.1016/j.puhe.2025.106051 PMID:41274097

Sentell T, Wu Y, Look M, Gellert K, Lowery St. John T, Ching L, Lee R, Pirkle C. Hula and outrigger canoe paddling in the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System in Hawaiʻi. Prev Chronic Dis. 2023;20(43):1-15. doi:10.5888/pcd20.220412 PMID: 37229648.

Sentell T, Foss-Durant A, Patil U, Taira D, Paasche-Orlow M, Trinacty CM. Organizational health literacy: opportunities for patient-centered care in the wake of COVID-19. Qual Manag Health Care. 2020;30(1):49-60. doi:10.1097/QMH.0000000000000279

Sentell T, Choi SY, Ching L, Quensell M, Keliikoa LB, Corriveau E, Pirkle C. Prevalence of selected chronic conditions among children, adolescents, and young adults in acute care settings in the state of Hawai‘i. Prev Chronic Dis. 2020;17:190448. doi:10.5888/pcd17.190448

Sentell T, Kennedy F, Seto T, Vawer M,Chiriboga G, Valdez C,Garrett LM, Paloma D,TairaD. Sharing the patient experience: a “talk story” intervention for heart failure management in Native Hawaiians. J Patient Exp. 2019;7(3):399-407. doi:10.1177/2374373519846661

Sentell T, Ylli A, Pirkle CM, Qirjako G, Xinxo S. Promoting a culture of prevention in Albania: the “Si Je?” program. Prev Sci. 2018;22:29-39. doi:10.1007/s11121-018-0967-5

Sentell T, Pitt R, Buchthal OV. Health Literacy in a Social Context: Review of Quantitative Evidence. HLRP: Health Literacy Research and Practice. April 2017 – Volume 1 · Issue 2: e41-e70.

Sentell TL, Ahn HJ, Miyamura J, Tiara DA. 30-Day Inpatient Readmissions for Asian American and Pacific Islander Subgroups Compared to Whites. Medical Care Research and Review. 2016 Nov 1:1077558716676595. doi: 10.1177/1077558716676595. [Epub ahead of print]

Sentell TL, Young MM, Vawer MD, Quensell M, Seto TB, Braun K, Juarez DT. (2016) Pathways to Potentially Preventable Hospitalizations for Diabetes and Heart Failure: Patient Perspectives. BMC Health Services Research;16:300.

Sentell T, Zhang W, Davis J, Baker K, Braun KL. (2014). The influence of community and individual health literacy on self-reported health status. Journal of General Internal Medicine 29(2):298-304.

Sentell TL, Unick G, Ahn HJ, Braun K Miyamura J, Shumway M. (2013). Rates and illness severity for inpatient psychiatric hospitalizations among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Psychiatric Services 64(11):1095-102

Sentell TL, Ahn HJ, Juarez DT, Tseng C-W, Chen JJ, Salvail FR, Miyamura J, Mau MM. (2013). Diabetes-related potentially preventable hospitalizations in Native Hawaiian, Chinese, Filipino, and Japanese Elderly compared to Whites in Hawai’i. Preventing Chronic Disease 10:E123.

Sentell T. (2012). Implications For Reform: Survey Of California adults suggests low health literacy predicts likelihood of being uninsured. Health Affairs;31(5):1039-48.