I qualified in medicine in Belfast, Northern Ireland, with subsequent training in internal medicine and public health. As Professor of European Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine I co-direct the European Centre on Health of Societies in Transition (ECOHOST), a WHO Collaborating Centre that comprises the largest team of researchers working on health and health policy in central and eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. I am also research director of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, a unique partnership of universities, national and regional governments, and international agencies. I have published over 550 scientific papers and 38 books. I was an editor of the European Journal of Public Health for 15 years and am a member of numerous editorial boards, as well as being an editorial consultant to The Lancet. I have been invited to give many endowed lectures, including the Milroy (Royal College of Physicians), Cochrane (UK Society for Social Medicine), Ference Bojan (EUPHA), Davidson (Royal College of Physicians Edinburgh), Salvador Lucia (UCSF), Population Health Sciences (McMaster University) and Victor Horsley (British Medical Association). I sit on a number of advisory boards in Europe and North America, in both the public and private sectors and I am a trustee of the UK Public Health Association. I chair WHO's European Advisory Committee on Health Research and the Global Health Advisory Committee of George Soros' Open Society Foundations. I am a Fellow of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of London, Edinburgh, and Ireland and the UK Faculty of Public Health and a former chair of the UK Society for Social Medicine. My contributions to European health policy have been recognised by, among others, election to the UK Academy of Medical Sciences, the Romanian Academy of Medical Sciences, and the US Institute of Medicine, by the award of honorary doctorates from Hungary, The  Netherlands and Sweden, and visiting professorships at the Universities of Zagreb and Belgrade, the London School of Economics, and Taipei Medical University. In 2003 I was awarded the Andrija Stampar medal for contributions to European public health and in 2005 was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by HM Queen Elizabeth II.

If you want to know what European Public Health actually is, you can listen to a lecture I gave on this topic at the University of Maastricht, or read my blog!  You can also follow me on Twitter at @martinmckee

Teaching

I established and now contribute to a course on issues in public health, taught in the autumn term. This course seeks to show that public health can actually be exciting and stimulating. It is intended for people who want to make the world a better, and fairer place to live in. It uses problem based learning and is based on real life issues, such as gun control, discrimination, and challenging vested interests. It is not for those who see public health as a way to a quiet life! I also contribute to a course on health systems, in the summer term, that draws extensively on our work in the European Observatory.

Research

My main research foci are health determinants (especially social change, alcohol, tobacco and nutrition), health system performance, and the relationship between health and the economy.

Selected publications

• Suhrcke, M.; Rocco, L.; McKee, M. Health: a vital investment for economic development in eastern Europe and central Asia European Observatory on Health Care Systems (London) 2007
• Suhrcke, M.; McKee, M.; Stuckler, D.; Sauto Arce, R.; Tsolova, S.; Mortensen, J.; The contribution of health to the economy in the European Union. Public Health, 2006; 120(11):994-1001
• McKee, M.; Healy, J. Hospitals in a changing Europe Open University Press (Buckingham) 2002 :306
• Dubois, C.A.D; McKee, M.; Nolte, E.(Eds.) Human resources for health in Europe Open University Press (Maidenhead) 2006