EU Commission Grant: SHARE-ERIC is becoming a central pillar in Corona crisis related research

The EU Commission accepted the proposal of the SHARE-COVID research project to investigate the health, behavioural, social and economic impact of the COVID-19 outbreak

Munich, 12 August 2020. The European Commission announced to support SHARE-ERIC’s COVID-19 research project (SHARE-COVID) by funding through Horizon 2020 and the Coronavirus Global Response initiative launched by President Ursula von der Leyen in May 2020.

The non-intended consequences of the epidemic control decisions to contain the COVID-19 pandemic are huge and affect the well-being of European citizens in terms of economics, social relationships and health. SHARE-COVID is aiming to answer recent and future questions about these non-intended effects. The overarching objective of this project is to devise improved health, economic and social policies and to deliver quick results for society for a higher level of preparedness of health systems.

The results will for example help to understand the lockdown effects on health and health behaviours and to analyse labour market implications. Furthermore, the impact of pandemic and lockdown on income and wealth inequality will be investigated. SHARE-COVID research also aims to mitigate the effects of epidemic control decisions on social relationships and to improve future epidemic control measures by taking geographical patterns of the disease and their relationship with social patterns into account. Another aim of SHARE-COVID research is to explore ways to improve the housing and living arrangement choices of the older generation while facing the challenges of a pandemic.

By this, SHARE strives to contribute in making healthcare systems and societies in the EU more resilient to pandemics in terms of prevention, protection and treatment of the population 50+, a most vulnerable part of the population. With this funding, the European Commission is paving the way for SHARE-ERIC to becoming a key component in processing the socio-economic consequences of the Corona pandemic in Europe and beyond.  

>> Please find here the press release of the European Commission

>> Please find here an overview of all 23 new European research projects, including SHARE-COVID

Background:

SHARE, the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe is a multidisciplinary and cross-national panel database of micro data on health, socio-economic status and social and family networks of about 140,000 individuals aged 50 or older with around 380,000 interviews. The survey covers 28 European countries and Israel and is centrally coordinated at the Max-Planck-Institute for Social Law and Social Policy in Munich.

In the beginning of June 2020, SHARE already started the fieldwork of a new “SHARE COVID-19 survey”. A sub-sample of SHARE’s panel respondents is being interviewed via a Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI) to collect data on the same topics as in the regular SHARE questionnaire - but shortened and targeted to the COVID-19 living situation of people who are 50 years and older. >> Read more

>> see the SHARE COVID-19 Questionnaire (PDF)

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Press contact:
Verena Coscia
coscia@mea.mpisoc.mpg.de