In this study, a comprehensive method is proposed to identify bridge bearing damage based on the statistical moment rate of change for simply supported beam bridges. The novelty of this study lies in two aspects: (1) establish the statistical moment change rate theory, which derive the relationship between statistical moment and modal shape; and (2) propose a new method for identifying vibration modes and bridge bearing damage using statistical moment and statistical moment change rate, respectively. The proposed method has a strong robustness with a high computational efficiency. Under the proposed method, the statistical moment theory is introduced and the statistical moment change rate index is constructed. Theoretical derivation shows that the index can accurately identify bearing damage. Subsequently, this method is investigated through numerical simulation and performed well in different situations, such as high-level measurement noise. Furthermore, it was validated via on-site testing on Qingshui bridge and a certain bridge in Chongqing. Additionally, the statistical moment change rate allows the damage location to be identified rapidly, thus providing a new method for bridge bearing damage identification.