In the United States, racial/ethnic minority, rural, and low-income populations continue to experience suboptimal access to and quality of health care despite decades of recognition of health disparities and policy mandates to eliminate them. Many health care interventions that were designed to achieve health equity fall short because of gaps in knowledge and translation. We discuss these gaps and highlight innovative interventions that help address them, focusing on cardiovascular disease and cancer. We also provide recommendations for advancing the field of health equity and informing the implementation and evaluation of policies that target health disparities through improved access to care and quality of care.

These findings demonstrate the feasibility and potential utility of identifying and reporting contextual factors. Involving diverse stakeholders in assessing context at multiple stages of the research process, examining their association with outcomes, and consistently reporting critical contextual factors are important challenges for a field interested in improving the internal and external validity and impact of health care research.