Interestingly, our findings show similar patterns to data on the willingness of urban healthcare workers from nonpublic health settings to respond to emergencies: a survey of 6248 employees from 47 healthcare facilities in the New York City area revealed that these workers were least willing (48%) to report to duty during an untreatable naturally-occurring infectious disease outbreak affecting their facility (SARS), compared to other disaster scenarios [5] . In our study we have detected similar rates of likelihood to report to duty, although lower rates could have been expected in our study population since the New York City survey focused on healthcare workers whose organizational cultures are historically much more accustomed than that of local public health workers to emergency response, in a city with a heightened awareness of disaster preparedness in the wake of the World Trade Center attacks and subsequent anthrax attacks [5] .