In spite of its usefulness for health monitoring of structures on steady external load, the statistical pattern recognition technology (SPRT), based on Mahalanobis distance theory (MDT), is not good enough for the health monitoring of structures on large variability external load like earthquake. Damage is usually determined by the difference between the average measured value of undamaged structure and the measure value of damaged one. So when external variability gets larger, the difference gets bigger along, which is thus easily mistaken for a damage. This paper aims to overcome the problem and develop an improved Mahalanobis distance theory (IMDT), that is, a SPRT with revised MDT in order to decrease external variability so that we will be able to continue to monitor the structure on uncertain external variability. This method is experimentally tested to see if it precisely evaluates the health of a cable-stayed bridge on each general random load and earthquake load. As a result, the IMDT is found to be valid in locating structural damage made by damaged cables by means of data from undamaged cables. So it is proved to be effectively applicable to the health monitoring of bridges on external load of variability.