Objective To understand the human resource quality and the weakness of public health emergency teams in district-level CDCs of Shenzhen city, in order to provide decision-making basis for establishment of the emergency management system.

Methods Totally 325 members of emergency teams in 10 district-level CDCs of Shenzhen City were surveyed and the human resource quality was evaluated based on all population in Shenzhen.

Results There were 10 district-level centers for disease control and prevention in Shenzhen, among which 4 were located in the special zone and 6 in the non-special zone. There were 0.96 public health physician per ten thousand population in special zone and 0.73 in non-special zone. The number of authorized personnel, the senior professional title, the education level and working-time on emergency preparation of emergency teams in the special zone were prior to that in non-special zone (P < 0.05). The average of comprehensive score of human resource quality in special zone was 10.56 (standardized value, 0.65), which was higher than that in the non-special zone (the average of score 9.36, and the standardized value 0.58).

Conclusion The emergency teams in district-level CDCs of Shenzhen have been already established, but the capacity building should be improved and more work needs to be done in the non-special zone.