In Alberta, public health and emergency response procedures are primarily governed under the Disaster Services Act [3] and the Public Health Act [4] . Provincial response to a public health disaster event may thus call into action organizations and units under the jurisdiction of local municipalities, regional health authorities, emergency management districts, and/or the provincial government. There are a number of organizational actors that may be involved in preparation, response, or recovery phases of a public health disaster, including departments or portfolios within agencies. Each of which are potential actors in the provincial public health and emergency response network. While we consider the overall public health and emergency management network to consist of all poten-tial organizational actors involved in responding to public health threats, the precise set of organizations that come together around a particular public health threat depends on the nature of that threat. For example, pandemic influenza and the West Nile virus are both emerging infectious diseases but the nature of their transmission differs and distinctive sets of organizational actors must be in place to confront them. In the case of West Nile Virus, Alberta's Department of the Environment and Sustainable Resource Development would be integrally involved for mosquito surveillance and control whereas it would not be as integral in the event of a pandemic influenza outbreak [5] . To assess potential differences by public health threat in Alberta public health preparedness, we examine and compare two potential public health threats: pandemic influenza and West Nile Virus.