What does NVLAP stand for?

• A. National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program
• B. National Verification Laboratory Accreditation Program
• C. National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Programs
• D. National Voluntary Laboratory Accrediting Program

Answer: (A)

NVLAP stands for National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program. It’s a program run by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) that grants formal accreditation to laboratories performing testing and calibration to recognized quality and technical standards. Participation is voluntary, meaning labs choose to pursue accreditation to demonstrate their competence. Accreditation through NVLAP signals that a lab’s methods, quality system, and proficiency testing meet established norms, which helps ensure the reliability of test results—important in environmental work like air monitoring. The other options misspell or misstate the program: they use Verification instead of Voluntary, or they treat the name as plural, or they use Accrediting instead of Accreditation.