Abstract: Objective To analyze the status of public health emergency response capacity of centers for disease control and prevention(CDCs) at grassroots level in Harbin city for the improvement of the capacity.Methods With cross-sectional study design,18 CDCs were involved in the surevy.Results Emergency response office was set up in 83.33% of the CDCs and all CDCs compliled emergency response plan/file/manual.For the CDCs surveyed,professional and technical personnel accounted for 76.02% of the total number of staff and 39.79% of the staff were capable of conducting field epidemiological investigation,66.67% had emergency backup experts,96.54% had the network for public health emergency report,and 83.33% could supplement emergency supplies in time with appropriate management.But only 16.67% of the CDCs had special funds for emergency response and all the CDCs could not perform pathogenic detection for cholera,Japanese encephalitis,and influenza,which belong to 16 common pathogens.Conclusion The general status of public health emergency response capacity in Harbin city was not good enough,with the most prominent issues of irrational structure of health human resource,unreasonable public health emergency response mechanisms,inefficient training and drilling,and inadequate laboratory testing ability.