OBJECTIVETo describe the occupational distribution of staff who worked on detection and reporting on public health emergency events, and to explore the effective strategies for identification and reporting on emergency events.

METHODSWe conducted a retrospective survey on 3275 emergent events reported through Public Health Emergency Events Surveillance System from 2005 to the first half of 2006. Data were collected by uniform self-administrated questionnaires by county Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including information on events detection and reporting, etc.

RESULTSAmong event discoverers, 56.40% (1847/3275) were healthcare staff, 20.58% (674/3275) were teachers, and 15.15% (496/3275) were staff from the disease control systems. Among those event reporters, 56.82% (1861/3275) were healthcare staff, 21.77% (713/3275) from disease control system and 10.75% (352/ 3275) were teachers.

CONCLUSIONHealthcare staff and teachers played the most important role in detection and reporting on events. It would be favorable to improve the ability of events detection and reporting if we could enhance the training program to the relative staff in medical facilities and school settings especially at the grass root level.