Bio

Charles Senteio joined the SC&I faculty in September 2016 after teaching in the Department of Media and Information at Michigan State University’s College of Communication Arts and Sciences. He is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES), and Certified Community Health Worker Instructor (CHW-I).

Research

Charles Senteio uses mixed methods to investigate how healthcare practitioners and patients can better use information to improve chronic disease outcomes for at-risk patients – while reducing cost of care – through financially sustainable care delivery models. He develops and enhances innovative, scalable approaches to care delivery, with a particular emphasis on community-based participatory (CBPR) research strategies. His dissertation describes the psychosocial factors that practitioners consider in providing outpatient diabetes care. Among his findings are the perceived facilitators and barriers to using Electronic Health Record (EHR) tools to document and use pertinent psychosocial information.

Senteio's research covers the following three themes:

1. Evaluation of current capabilities, such as the degree to which current healthcare system capabilities support chronic disease patients.
2. Identification of areas to improve health outcomes and/or cost of care, such as describing disparities in prenatal antiretroviral (ARV) treatment among HIV-infected Medicaid enrollees or barriers dialysis patients experience in understanding treatment options.
3. Development of new capabilities and measurement of their impact, such as documenting improvements in community engagement for health informatics research and practice.

His research work trajectory includes developing capabilities, for both patients and providers, in the primary care setting to collect and use psychosocial information to support a more personalized consultation. There is notable support for the relevance of this work. For example, in November, 2014 the Institute of Medicine released the report, Capturing Social and Behavioral Domains and Measures in Electronic Health Records: Phase 2 which details specific recommendations for capturing social and behavioral data in the EHR. His dissertation study findings, which describe how and under which circumstances providers use psychosocial information, are critical to understanding what information is needed, and when. His research agenda includes piloting capabilities to capture and use this psychosocial information in clinical settings in order to measure the impact of its use. He is seeking to use this insight to develop sustainable models of care delivery, which result in more efficient care, as measured by health outcomes, patient satisfaction, patient activation, and cost of care.

He intends to collect and use psychosocial information in order to extend personalized medicine capabilities—which are currently tailored to the genetics of the patient—to the lived experience of the person.

At MIT

MLK Visiting Scholar Virtual Luncheon: Addressing Health Inequity through Information Technology, 26 January 2021 [SEE VIDEO BELOW]

Survey project: COVID-19 and Race, December 2020 

Postdoc Freddy Nguyen, grad student Emre Ergecen, and Visiting Assistant Professor Charles Senteio describe collective actions to tackle health inequities and disparities. MIT News, 9 October 2020

MEDIA

Dr. Senteio talks health inequity and building trust through community health informatics.