Aim: To investigate the relationship between attention and pain in childhood.

Background: There is growing evidence of a link between pain and attention. Several studies have demonstrated that being in pain consumes our attention and reduces our effectiveness on current tasks (Moore, Keogh & Eccleston, 2012, 2013). Those with better attentional resources may also be better served by distractions from pain (Legrain, Van Damme, Eccleston, Davis, Seminowicz & Crombes, 2009; Verhoeven, Dick, Eccleston, Goubert & Crombez, 2012). In another strain of research, there is evidence that childhood intelligence, a concept closely related to attention, is related to various health outcomes such as life span (Whalley & Deary, 2001), late-onset dementia (Whalley et al, 2000), cardiovascular disease (Hart et al, 2004) and psychiatric disorders (Batty, Mortensen & Osler, 2005). The proposed research will extend and bridge these two areas of literature on cognition and health by investigating the relationship of chronic pain to intelligence and attention. This will extend our understanding of the relationship between a) childhood attention and experiences of pain and more broadly b) childhood intelligence and health outcomes.