Professor Liao obtained a Degree of Bachelor of Medicine from Health Science Center, Peking University and her PhD degree from the Department of Community Medicine, The University of Hong Kong. She joined the School of Public Health, HKU as a Postdoctoral Fellow in 2011, and became an Assistant Professor in 2018. She adopts a theoretical and intervention approach to support healthy behavioural change and decision making among different populations using theories and methodologies derived from public health, health psychology, social science and other branches of behavioural sciences. She uses different behavioural change models to understand the relationship between risk perceptions and behavioural decision making in relation to health. In particular, she is interested in using dual-process models to clarify both the cognitive and affective processes of risk judgment and behavioural decision making. On the basis of dual process models, she is also interested in developing and testing cueing or priming interventions that are aimed to activate the affective/nonconscious processes in decision making and guiding health behavioural change. Her recent research interests have also involved exploring the impacts of different risk representations (e.g. framing, graphical vs. textual, risk measures, and representations of uncertainty in risk) and trust in messengers and messages on public emotional and behavioural engagement with global health issues such as climate change and antimicrobial resistance.

1. Liao Q, Fielding R, Cheung YTD, Lian J, Yuan J, Lam WWT (2020). Effectiveness and parental acceptability of social networking interventions for promoting seasonal influenza vaccination among young children: randomized control trial. J Med Internet Res, 22: e16427. DOI: 10.2196/16427. (2018 IF=4.945; Rank 1 out of 26 under the category of “Medical Informatics”) [link]
2. Ng TWY, Cowling BJ, So HC, Ip DKM, Liao Q (2020). Testing an integrative theory of health behavioural change for predicting seasonal influenza vaccination uptake among healthcare workers. Vaccine, 38: 690-698. DOI:10.1016/j.vaccine.2019.10.041. (2018 IF=3.269; Rank 57 out of 136 under the category of “Medicine, Research & Experimental”) [link]
3. Liao Q, Lam WWT, Wong CKH, Lam C, Chen J, Fielding R (2019). The relative effects of determinants on Chinese adults' decision for influenza vaccination choice: What is the effect of priming? Vaccine, 37: 4124-4132. DOI: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2019.05.072. (2018 IF=3.269; Rank 57 out of 136 under the category of “Medicine, Research & Experimental”) [link]
4. Liao Q, Wu P, Lam WWT, Cowling BJ, Fielding R (2018). Trajectories of public psycho-behavioural responses relating to influenza A(H7N9) over the winter of 2014-15 in Hong Kong. PsycholHealth; 15: 1-19. DOI: 10.1080/08870446.2018. (2018 IF=2.401; Rank 33 out of 137 under the category of “Psychology, Multidisciplinary”) [link]
5. Liao Q, Lam WWT, Cowling BJ, Fielding R (2018). Parental perspectives on hand, foot, and mouth disease among children in Hong Kong: a longitudinal study. Epidemiol Infect; 146: 324-332. DOI: 10.1017/S0950268818000018 (2018 IF=2.047; Rank 85 out of 186 under the category of “Public, Environmental & Occupational Health”) [link]
6. Yuan J, Liao Q^#, Lau EHY, Yang ZC, Ma XW, Chen JD, et al. (2014). Early public response to influenza A(H7N9), Guangzhou, China, May 2013. Emerging Infectious Diseases 20: 1238-40. DOI: 10.3201/eid2007.131155. #Co-first author (2018 IF=7.185; Rank 5 out of 89 under the category of “Infectious Diseases”) [link]
7. Liao Q, Cowling BJ, Lam WW, Ng DM, Fielding R (2014). Anxiety, worry and cognitive risk estimate in relation to protective behaviors during the 2009 influenza A/H1N1 pandemic in Hong Kong: ten cross-sectional surveys. BMC Infect Dis; 14:169. DOI: 10.1186/1471-2334-14-169. (2018 IF=2.565; Rank 48 out of 89 under the category of “Infectious Diseases”) [link]
8. Liao Q, Wong WS & Fielding R (2013). How do anticipated worry and regret predict influenza vaccination uptake among Chinese adults? Vaccine; 31: 4084-4090. DOI: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2013.07.009. (2018 IF=3.269; Rank 57 out of 136 under the category of “Medicine, Research & Experimental”) [link] 
9. Liao Q, Cowling BJ, Lam WT & Fielding R (2011). Changing perception of avian influenza risk, Hong Kong, 2006-2010. Emerg Infect Dis; 17: 2379-80.  DOI: 10.3201/eid1712.110298. (2018 IF=7.185; Rank 5 out of 89 under the category of “Infectious Diseases”) [link]
10. Liao Q, Lam WW, Jiang CQ, Ho EY, Liu YM, Zhang WS, Fielding R (2009). Avian influenza risk perception and live poultry purchase in Guangzhou, China, 2006. Risk Anl, 29: 416-424. DOI: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.2008.01157.x. (2018 IF=2.564; Rank 22 out of 105 under the category of “Mathematics, Interdisciplinary Applications”) [link]