This study used the data from the Chinese Urban and Rural Elderly Population Survey to analyze the correlations among the self-rated health of elderly Chinese people, demographic factors and chronic diseases. The results revealed that in comparing younger elderly individuals vs older elderly individuals, the urban elderly vs rural elderly, elderly man vs elderly women, and the elderly with fewer chronic diseases vs the elderly with more chronic diseases, the former’s self-rated health tended to be good, while the latter tended to be bad. In addition, over time, elderly individuals’ self-rated health tended to improve. This paper further studied high blood pressure, heart disease, arthritis, neck and lumbar disease, and chronic bronchitis and the impact of these five common chronic diseases on self-rated health. The results showed that, among these five types of chronic diseases, the impacts of heart disease and chronic bronchitis were greater than those of the other three chronic diseases.