With the advent of health poverty alleviation and rural revitalization policies in China, a significant change in the well-being of rural elderly residents has been noted. However, more research is required to understand the psychological implications of these policies. This study aims to analyze residents’ survival anxiety from a psychological perspective.

This study utilized a quasi-experimental design involving two groups-an intervention group (n=500) experiencing the policies of health poverty alleviation and rural revitalization, and a control group (n=500) unexposed to these policies. Both groups consisted of rural elderly residents aged 60 years or above from 10 villages in rural China. Data was collected through face-to-face interviews using the Survival Anxiety Scale (SAS) pre-and-post intervention. Data analysis involved a combination of descriptive statistics, Chi-square tests, and Binary Logistic Regression, conducted via SPSS v23.

Results showed a significant decrease in the level of survival anxiety in the intervention group post-exposure to the policies (P<0.05) compared to the control group. Specifically, the odds of survival anxiety were 0.61 times lower among those who had experienced the policies, controlling for age, gender, and baseline SAS scores.

This finding indicates that health poverty alleviation and rural revitalization have a favourable effect on reducing survival anxiety among rural elderly residents. This implies a strong correlation between social policy and mental health.