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WHOQOL-Bref is widely used to assess quality of life. The present study estimated the prevalence of elderly people with low quality of life and the association of socio-cultural, economic and health variables. The elderly were classified as low (< 60 points) or regular/good (> 60 points). The elderly (1431) were investigated, most of the elderly were married, with low schooling, with own income and lived with their spouse or other relatives. A large part (20.8%) reported having performed some habitual physical activity, (24.7%) smoked and (7.1%) ingested high amounts of alcohol. The mean WHOQOL-Bref score was 87.9 ± 11.6 points, with 6.1% having poor quality of life and 93.9% regular/good. There was a high number of elderly people with hypertension, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and stroke in the low quality of life group. Also, it showed a high frequency in the elderly who reported very poor/poor vision, hearing and the prevalence of hospitalizations. The results suggested that the quality of life standards assessed by the WHOQOL-Bref are similar to the Southern Brazilian regions and the cut-off point used here was reliable for detecting poor quality of life associated with chronic morbidities.