Background  The impairment of activities of daily living (ADL) is the main health problem of the elderly. At present, there are few studies on the health status of the elderly in agricultural and pastoral areas in China.

  Objective  To investigate the impaired rate of ADL of the elderly in agricultural and pastoral areas, analyze the influencing factors, and put forward countermeasures.

  Methods  By adopting cross-sectional survey method, questionnaires on Current Situation and Needs of Elderly Care were distributed in proportion to three different economic development areas in China by means of face-to-face survey, which included general information, ADL, health status, etc, then the single factor and binary logistic regression analysis of ADL were carried out.

  Results  A total of 1394 valid questionnaires were collected in this study, including 441 in eastern region, 288 in central region and 665 in western region, with 672 males (48.2%) and 722 females (51.8%), and their average age was (70.03±7.99) years. The impaired rate of ADL was 45.6%, and the prevalence rate of chronic diseases was 53.7%. The results of binary logistic regression analysis showed that advanced age, female, living in western region, living in pastoral areas, no economic income, pension insurance, multiple coexisting diseases and self-rated health status were the high-risk factors of impaired rate of ADL of the elderly in agricultural and pastoral areas.

  Conclusion  This study finds that the impaired rate of ADL of the elderly in agricultural and pastoral areas is high, and it is affected by many factors, which suggests that the health services need to be strengthened, and the health level needs to be improved.