For Dr. Richard Hart, improving health has never stopped at the doors of a hospital.
Across more than five decades at Loma Linda University Health, Hart has approached health from both the individual and community level, caring for patients while working to address the conditions that shape their health and well-being.
“The process of engaging with human need and using that to guide your professional activities has been key to my personal life,” Hart said.
That philosophy guided Hart through 18 years as president of Loma Linda University Health, following seven years as university chancellor and 11 years as dean of the School of Public Health. He retired this summer and now serves as president emeritus.
His interest in public health began during his first year of medical school, when a lecture on global health changed the direction of his career.
“I’m a big picture guy,” Hart said. “If I can do more than just seeing an individual patient, I can impact a system.”
Hart put that belief into practice throughout his career. His work has taken him to Tanzania and communities around the world while helping shape initiatives closer to home that continue serving people today. He also became the founding president of Adventist Health International, extending his work to health institutions around the world.
Hart saw repeatedly that medical care alone cannot create a healthy community. People also need safe housing, nutritious food, transportation, education and opportunity.
“Health is an essential part of development, but is not sufficient by itself,” Hart said. “You have to have the other components. You have to have housing.”
That belief created a natural connection with National CORE. Hart saw National CORE’s housing mission and Loma Linda’s health mission as complementary pieces of the same effort.
“As we look to try to add the health component into that, it’s a natural marriage,” Hart said. “That is a true synergy for development.”
Hart has also spent his career teaching future health professionals to engage directly with human need and understand the larger forces affecting the people they serve.
“You learn by engaging with others, particularly those in need,” he said.
He sees the same principle at work in affordable housing.
“That’s what National CORE does when it gives an opportunity for safe housing, to empower a community, to empower people to truly move on,” Hart said. “That’s the kind of development that will last.”
For more than half a century, Hart has worked to improve health by strengthening the people and communities around him. For that lifetime of service, National CORE and Hope through Housing Foundation are honored to recognize Dr. Richard Hart with the 2026 Daniel R. Fauske Founders Award.
