Dr Ingrid Henckert-Weissnar: Health risk manager

Health risk management detects and controls possible difficulties in patient treatment in both individual and public health settings.

PhD holder Dr Ingrid Henckert-Weissnar’s job as a health risk manager entails the following tasks: a) Identifying health risks, b) researching and strategising ways to mitigate these health risks, c) piloting and evaluating different risk-mitigation interventions, d) implementing the most appropriate intervention, and e) continuously evaluating and improving the intervention to optimise effectiveness in mitigating the identified health risk.

"I grew into this position organically; it was not something I set out to do when I first went to study political science and development studies."

My first job was in training and human resource management. With the advent of the HIV epidemic at the turn of the century, I became particularly interested in the effect of HIV on the Namibian workforce. This fuelled my motivation to learn more about clinical and health financing treatments to reduce the risk of HIV in the workplace,” she said.

“At the time, I seized the opportunity to join an international non-profit organisation that specialises in HIV and health risk management programmes in various countries. Over the last 20 years, I have established and managed a variety of health-related initiatives.”

Her advice to young Namibians is to allow your career to develop in accordance with your passion, to feel free to try in many jobs and to choose careers that make you happy and keep you interested, she said.

“Don't put any pressure on yourself to choose one career and stick with it for the rest of your life. Allow your career to develop as you mature. Learn new things all the time and have the confidence to change and progress. And, most importantly, have joy while doing so.”