Sostina S. Matina is a public health researcher whose work examines the intersections of migration, gender, ageing, and health equity in Southern Africa. She coordinates and teaches the postgraduate module on Migration and Health, contributes to curriculum development and postgraduate supervision. Sostina serves as chair of the Trainee and Early Career Researcher Subcommittee of the International Society for Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD), and is an honorary researcher of the MRC/Wits Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Unit (Agincourt).
Her research draws on social epidemiology, health systems, and community-based enquiry to explore how structural and policy environments shape healthcare access for marginalised and mobile populations. She contributes to the GEMMS Global Health Research Group, with a focus on gendered violence, mental health, and the politics of deservingness among migrants across multiple country contexts. Her doctoral research, conducted through the Soweto Syndemics Study, examined how childhood adversity, socioeconomic stress, co-morbidity, and gendered inequalities shape the timing and severity of menopause among midlife women in Soweto.
Her supervision interests include migration and health, gender and health, reproductive health, mental health, ageing and caregiving, mixed-methods research, qualitative research, social determinants of health, and health systems access among marginalised populations.