The Department of Health Crisis Management is responsible for planning responses to incidents that are hazardous to health, and performs scientific evaluations of the incidents. Additionally, it collects and analyzes information about health risks, applying epidemiological data to the study of the management of a mass outbreak of disease or other health incidents requiring urgent attention. In particular, in order to insure that information on incidents that cause health crises is promptly gathered and made available to local governments, since fi scal 2011 we have been managing the health crisis management library system (H-CRISIS). Also, for the purpose of human resource development to manage health crises in the community, we conduct training courses (“Health Crisis Management,” “Managing Mass Outbreaks of Infectious Diseases,” etc.). The term “health crisis” covers a diverse range of phenomena, from natural disasters to terrorist acts, and the extent of information that the central government is expected to provide is expanding year by year. As we organize research on health crisis management in the Health and Labour Sciences Research Project, we will be expected to cooperate with researchers who are prominent in the health crisis management field, and will also be expected to recommend new directions for Japan to take in health crisis management research.