Objective  To examine status quo and individual and familial influencing factors of self-rated health among adult residents in China for providing evidences to studies on self-rated health in Chinese populations.

  Methods  The data on 22 366 residents aged ≤ 16 years were extracted from The China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) conducted among 16 000 households in 25 provinces/municipalities/autonomous regions across China in 2016. Ordinal multi-category logistic regression was adopted to explore influences of individual and familial factors on self-rated health of the adult residents.

  Results  Of all the respondents, 72.33% (16 177) rated themselves as healthy and 27.67% (6 189) as unhealthy. Including individual and familial factors as independent variables, an ordinal multi-category logistic regression model for self-rated health was established and the model fitted the data well, with following parameter values: logarithmic likelihood value = – 29 788.70, LR chi² (116) = 8 143.95, Pseudo R² = 0.12, and P < 0.001. Under the combined impact of individual and familial factors, the respondents' self-rated health was influenced by government subsidy, cohabitation, frequency of physical exercise, change in health condition, two-week disease prevalence, suffering from chronic disease during past 6 months, hospitalization, frequency of alcohol drinking, whether having noon break, participation in New Rural Cooperative Medical System, participation in social security for rural residents, and whether with depression symptom.

  Conclusion  Early identification and intervention on rural adult residents with poor self-rated health are beneficial to the rational allocation of social health resources.