Abstract: Objective To know university students’ understanding and mastery of the health emergency, find out the group’s cognitive basis and weak links to provide evidence to specifically develop health emergency publicity education, and achieve better effects for the promotion of attainment items. Methods Adopt qualitative interview to learn respondents’ awareness of health emergency listed in the interview outline. Results There is a general lack of risk consciousness and insufficient emergency preparation among interview subjects. The better mastering contents includes risk communication,prevention and control of zoonotic diseases, individual prevention and control of infectious diseases, identification of nuclear radiation and poison-related warning figures, emergency skills to be taken when being infected with poisonous and harmful substance, and solutions for natural disasters. In the discussion of emergency disposal measures and legal emergency, only two subjects gave comparatively comprehensive response, yet none mentioned other contents about nuclear or radiation damage protection, which indicated that the students’ groups had poor understanding of the emergency disposal measures,the legal emergency, nuclear and radioactive materials. Conclusion This study reveals that students lack cognitive structure of health emergency, emergency consciousness and ability, therefore students should learn emergency consciousness and ability from the beginning and correct some misunder standings. As for the emergency knowledge and skills mastered, they should be further consolidated and reviewed in practice.