The Wellbeing Impact Study of HS2 (WISH2) aims to understand how the High-Speed Rail 2 development (HS2), a large national transport project in England, might affect the mental health and wellbeing of people who live near the railway route.

The project is being undertaken by the Cambridge Centre for Health Services Research which includes researchers from RAND Europe and the University of Cambridge.

This research is focused on Phase 2 of the HS2 development. Even though the government cancelled Phase 2a and Phase 2b of the development in October 2023, we are continuing with this study since pre-construction activity already started taking place and we want to understand the impact of cancelling such an infrastructure project.

Overall, this research will develop a new way of understanding how infrastructure and transport projects can affect people’s mental health and wellbeing and help to develop ways of supporting communities where these projects are built.