Purpose: This study aimed to identify the influencing factors for work engagement of COVID-19 response workers in public health centers based on the JD-R model. Methods: The participants were 119 civil servants and professionals of 20 public health centers with at least 6 months of work experience and have experience of COVID-19 response tasks in cities, districts and counties. The collected data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson’s correlation coefficient and multiple regression using IBM SPSS 27.0. Results: The factors influencing work engagement were age, career development opportunity, and person-job fit. The explanatory power of these variables was 61%. Conclusion In order to enhance the work engagement of public health center workers in responding to future infectious disease outbreaks, it is necessary to develop various strategies such as assigning job roles that aligned with individual characteristics, providing career growth opportunities even during infectious disease outbreaks, and designing tasks by taking into account age.