1. Martin McKee was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and trained as a doctor at The Queen's University of Belfast, qualifying in 1979 and specialized initially in internal medicine at the Belfast City Hospital and the Royal Victoria Hospital between 1979 and 1985, before moving into public health.
Martin McKee created the European Centre on Health of Societies in Transition in 1997 with Professor David Leon, a WHO Collaborating Centre comprising a team of researchers working primarily on health and health policy in central and eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Martin McKee is research director of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, a partnership of universities, national and regional governments, international agencies and was President of the European Public Health Association between 2014 and 2016.
Martin McKee has published over 1300 scientific papers and 50 books, was an editor of the European Journal of Public Health for 15 years.
When Lord Darzi proposed the establishment of Polyclinics in England Martin McKee wrote a paper with Bernd Rechel of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in which they observed:.
Martin McKee has been a critic of the NHS reforms introduced by the UK's coalition government in 2012, arguing that they were unworkable and would lead to fragmentation and confusion.
In 2020, Martin McKee was appointed by the World Health Organization's Regional Office for Europe to serve as a member and chair of its scientific committee of the Pan-European Commission on Health and Sustainable Development, chaired by Mario Monti.
Martin McKee has received honorary doctorates from the universities of Debrecen, Maastricht, Karlstad, Queen's, Athens School of Public Health and the Nordic School of Public Health.
Martin McKee has been elected to the UK Academy of Medical Sciences and the US National Academy of Medicine.
Martin McKee was made a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire by HM Queen Elizabeth II for services to health in the 2005 Birthday Honours.