{"id":22,"date":"2016-12-09T20:19:47","date_gmt":"2016-12-09T20:19:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/crater\/?page_id=22"},"modified":"2025-09-26T09:13:25","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T13:13:25","slug":"director","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/crater\/director\/","title":{"rendered":"About Our Director"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-1629 \" src=\"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/content\/uploads\/sites\/85\/2023\/03\/hart_alton.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"280\" height=\"280\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/content\/uploads\/sites\/85\/2023\/03\/hart_alton.jpg 206w, https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/content\/uploads\/sites\/85\/2023\/03\/hart_alton-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 280px) 100vw, 280px\" \/><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">Alton Hart, Jr., MD, MPH, MDiv<\/h2>\n<p>Dr. Alton Hart, Jr. has served as the District Health Director for the Crater District Health Departments\/Virginia Department of Health (VDH) since July 1, 2012.<\/p>\n<p>He earned his Doctor of Medicine degree from the Medical College of Georgia and his Master of Public Health degree from the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle, WA. While at the UW, he also completed the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program, a research fellowship for physicians. Dr. Hart is a board-certified internist by the American Board of Internal Medicine.<\/p>\n<p>Prior to working for VDH, Dr. Hart served as the Associate Scientific Director for the Center on Health Disparities at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) for over 4 years. He also served as the Medical Director for Massey Cancer Center\u2019s Adult Cancer Survivorship Clinic and held an appointment in the School of Medicine as an Associate Professor of Medicine.<\/p>\n<p>While at VCU, Dr. Hart\u2019s research focused on working with African American men in 30 barbershops in the Richmond area. He served as principal investigator on a National Cancer Institute (NCI) funded project titled, \u201cExploring Cigarette Dependence among African American Males in Barbershops.\u201d He also served as a mentor in the National Cancer Institute\u2019s Research to Reality Mentoring Program; a program focused on evidence-based public health practice.<\/p>\n<p>Currently, Dr. Hart serves on the Board of Directors for the Cameron Foundation and Thrive Birth to Five.\u00a0 He also serves on the Community Policy and Management Team for the Petersburg Office of Children\u2019s Services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Alton Hart, Jr., MD, MPH, MDiv Dr. Alton Hart, Jr. has served as the District Health Director for the Crater District Health Departments\/Virginia Department of Health (VDH) since July 1, 2012. He earned his Doctor of Medicine degree from the Medical College of Georgia and his Master of Public Health degree from the University [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":258,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>About Our Director - Crater Health District<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/crater\/director\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"About Our Director - Crater Health District\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&nbsp; Alton Hart, Jr., MD, MPH, MDiv Dr. Alton Hart, Jr. has served as the District Health Director for the Crater District Health Departments\/Virginia Department of Health (VDH) since July 1, 2012. 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