Yifei Liu

Biography

Dr. Liu is a Fellow of the American Pharmacists Association (FAPhA) and a tenured associate professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) School of Pharmacy. He is also a fellow at the UMKC Healthcare Institute for Innovations in Quality and a doctoral faculty member at the UMKC Henry W. Bloch School of Management. He holds a B.S. in pharmacy from West China University of Medical Sciences, and an M.S. and a Ph.D. in pharmaceutical socioeconomics from the University of Iowa. He has taught topics in the areas of the U.S. healthcare system, healthcare marketing, pharmacy practice management, health economics, and health policy. His research interests include (1) examining the behaviors of patients and healthcare professionals; (2) implementing and evaluating healthcare services; (3) identifying risk factors for disease and factors affecting healthcare utilization; and (4) psychiatric pharmacy and the opioid epidemic. His research has been funded by government agencies, professional organizations, and pharmaceutical manufacturers.

Dr. Liu has served as an associate faculty member in the Post-Graduate Year 2 (PGY-2) Western Missouri Psychiatric Residency Program at the Center for Behavioral Medicine, and as a preceptor in the Walgreens Local Specialty Post-Graduate Year 1 (PGY-1) Community Residency Program at University Health. He also served as a preceptor in the PGY-1 Community Pharmacy Residency Program at UMKC, and the implementation co-lead for the Kansas City Quality and Value Innovation Consortium Opioid Management Project. Dr. Liu is an associate editor in pharmacoepidemiology for Frontiers in Pharmacology, a three-term editorial board member for Journal of the American Pharmacists Association, an editorial board member for Advances in Therapy, an advisory board member for Dermatology and Therapy, and a co-editor for the Research Topic of “Health Outcomes of Using Antipsychotics” of two participating journals. He also co-edited the Topic of five participating journals on "Advancing the Knowledge and Application of Health Behavior Theories", and the Research Topic of “Using Behavioral Theories to Improve Medication Use” of Frontiers in Pharmacology. In addition, he served on the editorial board of Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy. Dr. Liu has served as a reviewer for many journals and has been recognized as an outstanding reviewer by Journal of the American Pharmacists Association.

At the UMKC School of Pharmacy, Dr. Liu has served on various committees. He was the faculty delegate to 2023-24 American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) House of Delegates. At UMKC, he is a Faculty Fellow of the Diane Filion Center for Advancing Faculty Excellence to support faculty development in research. He served on the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Executive Committee, and is the faculty advisor for the student chapter of the Industry Pharmacists Organization. Nationally, he is Chair (2026-27) of the American Pharmacists Association (APhA) Research and Science Community, and a six-term Delegate to the APhA House of Delegates. He was Co-Chair of Member Engagement (2024-25) for the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) Clinical Outcome Assessment Special Interest Group (SIG), and Secretary of Knowledge Management (2022-24) for the AACP Public Health SIG. He has been appointed to ISPOR’s International Program Committee to develop content for ISPOR 2024-26 Annual Meetings. In 2025, ISPOR recognized Dr. Liu’s service with its Distinguished Service Award.