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This report presents a working definition of elder abuse so research and statistical data may be collected uniformly across states and localities with different legal and programmatic definitions of elder abuse. Consistent definitions and counting rules are needed to permit comparisons across jurisdictions and over time. The taxonomy we present here defines elder abuse along three dimensions—(1) the acts that constitute elder abuse, (2) the characteristics of the victim, (3) the relationship between the victim and perpetrator—and incorporates a fourth dimension to distinguish between criminal and noncriminal acts based on their severity.