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TIME features a new report from the Dartmouth Atlas Project, which found significant racial and regional disparities in the care of diabetes patients and diabetes-related amputations. The report, notes the magazine, says African American patients with diabetes are three times more likely to lose a leg to amputation than patients who are not African American.

One reason for the disparity, notes TIME, is a lack of routine preventative care. “The resources needed to prevent amputation are currently severely misaligned,” says Philip Goodney, co-author of the report and an assistant professor of surgery at the Geisel School of Medicine and at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice. “While we must look for opportunities to expand education and preventive care for all patients at risk for amputation, it seems clear to us that we can make the greatest gains by focusing on African American patients in the highest risk regions, typically in the poor rural regions of the southern United States, where the highest amputation rates remain.”

Read the full story, published 10/14/14 by TIME.