In 1976, the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect contracted with a research survey firm for a National Study of the Incidence and Severity of Child Abuse and Neglect ("NIS-1"), which was conducted in 1979-1980. By this time, all 50 States had laws that mandated the reporting of child abuse and neglect. When Congress called for a study of the national incidence of elder abuse, however, the 50 States had 71 different laws that addressed domestic and institutional elder maltreatment. Unlike child abuse, the reporting of elder abuse was and is not mandatory nationwide. The NEAIS was given just one objective: to determine the incidence of domestic elder abuse and neglect in the United States in 1996. NIS-1 had a more complex charge. Its primary objectives were to obtain a more comprehensive picture of the extent and character of recognized child abuse and neglect than is achievable from official report statistics alone and to examine how and how well the official reporting system is working. After comparing the two surveys on various issues, this paper concludes that future studies of the national incidence of elder abuse should address the reporting and detection of fatalities due to maltreatment. Such data may jolt society and government agencies from a denial of the seriousness of this problem. 7 references