Objective   To evaluate the relationship between local rainfall and frailty in the elderly.

  Methods  The information on 10 424 elderly aged 65 years and above were extracted from four rounds of the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS) conducted between 2005 and 2014 across China. Frailty index (FI) was used to assess frail status of the elderly; generalized linear mixed model and natural cubic spline function were adopted to explore the association of local rainfall with the prevalence of frailty.

  Results   The baseline prevalence of frailty was 18.6% for all the elderly aged 82.84 ± 11.30 years at baseline survey; at the last follow-up, the frailty prevalence increased to 27.8%. The results of multivariate regression analysis showed that the elderly living in regions with higher annual average local rainfall (highest quartile) had a lower risk of frailty (odds ratio = 0.60, 95% confidence interval: 0.50 – 0.71) compared to those living in regions with lower local rainfall (lowest quartile); while the correlation of local rainfall with prefrailty of the elderly was not significant.

  Conclusion   Local rainfall has a protective effect on the frailty of the elderly and specific concern should be paid when developing relevant healthcare strategies for the elderly in regions with different amount of rainfall.