Objective The awareness status of comprehensive knowledge on health emergency among the medical personnel in community health service institutions were investigated.

Methods A total of 510 medical staff in 18 community health service institutions of Pinggu District (totally 1 089 staff) were surveyed with questionnaire.

Results Finally we got 508 valid questionnaires. The awareness rate of comprehensive knowledge on health emergency among these medical personnel was 82.96%. Among them, more than 97% mastered the effective methods to prevent respiratory infectious diseases; 99.0% knew the reporting way of epidemic diseases of poultry and livestock; 91.5% knew indoor shielding way in earthquake. However, 18.7% staff were not familiar with the infection route of avian influenza. There were no differences of awareness rate of chemical poisoning treatment measures or infectious disease emergency between male and female staff(P>0.05). Most of the medical personnel knew general preventive principles against both respiratory and digestive infectious diseases. It showed that the personnel with higher academic title mastered the knowledge on avian influenza much better. There was statistical difference of awareness rate of knowledge on avian influenza among personnel at different ages, and the rate of those less than 30 years old was only 73.6%.

Conclusion The KAP on health emergency among medical staff in community health service institutions was not optimistic, and the emergency training and public education should be strengthened.