Jo Vearey

I currently hold a Wellcome Trust Investigator Award and coordinate the Migration and Health Project Southern Africa (maHp) at the African Centre for Migration and Society (ACMS) at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. My engagement with migration and health included my doctoral research (completed in 2010) that explored local level responses to migration, informal settlements, and HIV in Johannesburg. My research involves mixed methodologies, including policy analysis; cross-sectional household surveys; interviews; focus group discussions; participatory photography projects; and, participant observation in policy processes. With an explicit focus on generating research to inform improved responses to migration and health – particularly for marginalized population groups, including sex workers, migrants and residents of informal settlements – I am committed to developing ways to ensure that the voice of those affected is heard by policymakers and programme implementers. I have a strong interest in research ethics and the ways in which research responds to the needs of society, and how research is translated and taken-up into practice. Linked to this, I have coordinated and hosted policy dialogues in partnership with state and civil society structures to explore issues of migration and health, including the sharing of research findings and collective development of future research agendas – at both national and city-levels. The research I have carried out over the last five years includes: an assessment of local-level responses to migration and HIV; exploration of the linkages between migration, food security and HIV; mapping and assessments of regional and national responses to migration and health; participatory photography work with migrant sex workers; analysis of policy processes relating to migration and health at an international, regional and national level; investigating urban inequality, the social determinants of health and migration; and, responses to HIV and migration in post-conflict situations in Africa.