Abstract: Objective To investigate the status and influence factors of safety cognitive ability, self-help and first-aid capacity in emergency event among urban and rural residents in China.Methods The investigation covered 79 542 urban and rural residents aged 15-69 years in all provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities of mainland China selected with multistage stratified random sampling method.Based on ‘Health literacy-basic knowledge and skills for Chinese citizens' issued by Ministry of Health of China in 2008, a questionnaire was designed for a face-to-face interview among the residents on life safety, occupation safety, and first-aid methods.Results Overall, the residents had a higher awareness rate of life safety (93.82% for keeping pesticides and medicine in right place, 84.37% for purchasing pesticide correctly, and 89.40% for not eating outdated food), but lower awareness rate for no pesticide application to agricultural crops, vegetable, and fruit tree before harvest time (45.83%).Only 29.87% of the residents knew ‘The Law on Prevention and Control of Occupational Disease', whereas most of the residents were aware of the requirement for employers to provide facilities (81.08%) and training (81.15%) for the prevention of occupational diseases.Of the residents, 79.14%, 93.89%, and 92.28% listed correct first aid procedures in gas poisoning, electric shock, and fire emergency, but only 29.03%, 44.89%, and 19.66% knew how to stop bleeding in trauma victims, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and appropriate management of fracture, although most of the residents (88.5%) noted to dial ‘120’ for emergency service.Logistic regression analysis revealed that gender (odds ratioOR=0.881), age(OR=0.998), education(OR=1.959), nationality(OR=0.611), family size(OR=0.971), and familial income(OR=1.131) were main factors influencing safety cognitive ability and first aid capacity in the residents.Conclusion Safety and first aid education focused on children, guardian and the older should be developed, and self-help first aid capacity also should be improved.