Joel F. Farley, R.Ph., Ph.D. is an Assistant professor in the Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes & Policy and a pharmaceutical outcomes researcherspecializing in the assessment of pharmaceutical policy changes on clinical, economic, and epidemiologic outcomes in vulnerable patient populations.  Dr. Farley has expertise analyzing claims data from secondary data sources including publicly available surveys such as the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey and the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey and private health insurance claims data from managed care groups including United Health Care and Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina.  Dr. Farley has extensive experience working with Medicaid claims data. Past projects have assessed the impact of Medicaid prescription managed care policies on economic and clinical outcomes in patients with mental illness using Medicaid Analytical Extract data from 13 different state Medicaid programs.  Dr. Farley has published several papers related to prescription management of osteoporosis.  These studies are concentrated around ensuring access to antiresorptive medications in patients vulnerable to fracture.  He has served as a consultant to Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina to support the evaluation of a copayment waiver for medications used to treat chronic diseases.  His assistance in this collaboration has been instrumental in the design of a compliance algorithm to track changes in medication adherence and its impact on the cost of treatment for diabetes, hypertension, congestive heart failure, and hyperlipidemia.  In addition, Dr. Farley has served as a coinvestigator on an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Developing Evidence to Inform Decisions about Effectiveness (DEcIDE) contract (HHSA– 290200500401).  The overall goal of this comparative effectiveness evaluation was to address important knowledge gaps in depression treatment identified by prior research using secondary data derived from the Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression (STAR-D) trial.