Objective To analyze the epidemiological characteristics of public health emergencies in Tianhe district of Guangzhou, Guangdong province, from 2006 to 2022, and provide scientific evidence for the effective response to public health emergencies.

Methods The incidence data of public health emergencies in Tianhe district of Guangzhou from 2006 to 2022 were collected from China Disease Reporting Information System for a descriptive epidemiological analysis. Software SPSS 25.0 was used to express the basic information of public health emergencies as rate or percentage. t-test, Kruskal-Wallis test or χ² test were used for intra-group comparison. Multivariate linear regression analysis was used for correlation analysis, and the test level was α=0.05 (two-sided).

Results A total of 454 public health emergencies were reported in Tianhe district from 2006 to 2022, involving 9 524 cases, with an attack rate of 0.18%, and 11 deaths. Infectious disease epidemics accounted for 96.48% of all the public health emergencies, involving 39 other infectious diarrhea cases (8.59%), 31 influenza A (H1N1) cases (6.83%), 30 chickenpox cases (6.61%) and 8 food poisoning cases (1.76%). The incidence of public health emergencies showed no spatial clustering in Tianhe district. The annual incidence peaks of public health emergencies occurred during March-April and during September-November. The overall incidence and mortality rates of the diseases detected in the public health emergencies showed linear decline trends (trend χ²=17 270.040, 64.03, all P<0.001). The public health emergencies reported in educational institutions mainly occurred in elementary schools and childcare settings, which were mainly infectious disease epidemics. The medians (quartile) of times needed for epidemic detection, verification, reporting and control, and the epidemic duration were 0.27 (0.17, 1.00) h, 0.17 (0.17, 0.33) h, 0.21 (0.14, 0.36) h, 671.11(358.10, 2972.96) h and 157.00 (48.25, 406.50) h and varied with epidemic type, the differences were significant (H=16.750, 23.570, 21.330; P=0.01, <0.01, <0.01). The correlation was positive between time for reporting and duration in non-single case emergencies with a Spearman correlation coefficient of 0.256 (r=0.26, P＜0.01). Multiple Linear regression analysis showed that times for epidemic detection and reporting were correlated with epidemic duration (β=401.62, 599.27, P<0.01, 0.012, F=6.490).

Conclusion The overall incidence of public health emergencies showed increase with fluctuation in Tianhe district from 2006 to 2022, which was characteristics by low disease case count, declines of attack rate and case fatality rate, and more schools being affected. The local prevention and control of public health emergencies should focus on infectious diseases It is necessary to strengthen the prevention and control of public health emergencies in schools, pay attention to food poisoning in different places and improve the timeliness of detection and reporting for the timely control of public health emergencies.