The Israeli SHARE team repeatedly gave advice to the Israeli Ministry of Social Equality and Senior Citizens. In March 2020, they prepared a document about “The older population in Israel in the shade of the COVID-19 pandemic”, in which they analysed the health, economic and social characteristics of the 60+ population in Israel based on SHARE data. The aim was to predict the vulnerability of this population group during the COVID pandemic. In April 2020, SHARE Israel prepared a complementary document which focused on the comparison between the older Israeli population and the older European population before the outbreak of the pandemic in terms of health, social and economy. The documents were distributed to policy makers and professionals by the Ministry.

Following a request by the CEO of the Israeli Ministry of Social Equality and Senior Citizens, the Israeli team prepared a document providing a detailed description of SHARE’s major contributions for social policy makers in the field of ageing and, in particular, in times of pandemic. As a consequence, the team met with the CEO to further discuss the importance of SHARE for social policy and its significance in terms of science quality.

Shortly after, another senior representative of the Ministry requested data on the Arab population in Israel, which the Israeli SHARE team was able to answer with data on loneliness among older Arabs based on the SHARE Wave 8 COVID-19 data which was published in December. They further provided selected findings on the 65+ population in Israel during the pandemic for the assistant of the Minister of Social Equality. These selected finding were based on the SHARE Wave 8 COVID-19 data and were incorporated in the annual presentation of the Ministry.