Pharmacist Ilana Druker gives a vaccine to Beverly Mills, a teacher at Houston Independent School District’s Hattie Mae White Educational Support Center. A proposal that recently died in the Legislature would have created an office to track health outcomes for Texans. Credit: May-Ying Lam for The Texas Tribune Sign up for The Brief, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news. When the state’s Office of Minority Health Statistics and Engagement was defunded in 2017, no one could have predicted a massive pandemic would emerge three years later — one that disproportionately affected Black, Hispanic and disabled Texans, among other marginalized people.