Introduction:Several studies have reported impaired postural control in people with neck pain. Many of these studies have analysed centre of pressure data from a force plate in quiet standing but to our knowledge none has investigated the kinematics of postural sway in people with neck pain. From studies on healthy controls there are two well established strategies of maintaining upright stance: hip and ankle strategies. Recent work has shown that these co-exist simultaneously. The purpose of this study is to investigate these kinematic strategies in people with neck pain. This could give a greater understanding of the mechanisms behind the postural control impairments and give implications for specific rehabilitation interventions.Methods:Seventy subjects (neck pain n=44, controls n=26) stood with their feet together, arms crossed and their eyes closed for 180 s. An electromagnetic tracker was used to record the kinematics for a two segment model (leg, trunk). An in-phase pattern between these segments corresponds to ankle strategy and an anti-phase pattern to hip-strategy. The strength of the in-phase pattern was quantified using coherence analysis.Results:Preliminary results indicate that people with neck pain rely less on ankle strategy in quiet standing than healthy controls. There were no differences in variability of the segment angles between groups. However people with neck pain tended to stand with a greater degree of extension in the hip.Conclusion:It’s generally considered that hip-strategy is used more when the difficulty of the task is higher. One speculative interpretation to the weaker ankle strategy in the neck pain group is that they perceived the task as more demanding. The method of coherence analysis used in this study can be a valuable tool in future studies for understanding postural sway in people with spinal pain.