Environmental research has widely utilized the ambient concentrations of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) modeled by the National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment (NATA) program; however, limited studies have evaluated the model's performance. This study aims to evaluate the model-to-monitor agreement of the 2011 NATA data with the monitoring data reported to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Air Quality System (AQS). Concentrations of 27 representative HAPs measured at 274 sites in the U.S. in 2011 were merged with NATA data by census tract. The comparison consisted of two steps for each HAP: first, the model-monitor difference at each site was compared with the limit of quantitation (LOQ); second, the modeled annual average was compared to the 95% confidence interval of the monitored annual average. Nationally, NATA could predict national medians of most HAPs well; however, it was unable to capture high concentrations. At individual sites, a large portion of model-monitor differences was below the LOQs, indicating they were unquantifiable. Model-to-monitor agreement displayed inconsistent patterns in terms of chemical groups or EPA regions and was strongly impacted by the comparison methods. The substantial non-agreements of NATA predictions with monitoring data require caution in environmental epidemiology and justice studies that are based on NATA data.

中文翻译：

---

2011 年国家规模空气毒物评估 (NATA) 的模型到监测评估。


环境研究广泛利用了国家规模空气毒物评估 (NATA) 计划建模的有害空气污染物 (HAP) 的环境浓度；然而，评估该模型性能的研究有限。本研究旨在评估 2011 年 NATA 数据与向美国环境保护署 (EPA) 空气质量系统 (AQS) 报告的监测数据的模型与监测一致性。 2011 年在美国 274 个地点测量的 27 种代表性 HAP 浓度已与按人口普查区划分的 NATA 数据合并。每个 HAP 的比较包括两个步骤：首先，将每个位点的模型监测差异与定量限 (LOQ) 进行比较；其次，将建模的年平均值与监测的年平均值的 95% 置信区间进行比较。在全国范围内，NATA 可以很好地预测大多数 HAP 的全国中位数；然而，它无法捕获高浓度。在各个站点，模型-监视器差异的很大一部分低于 LOQ，表明它们是无法量化的。模型与监测的一致性在化学基团或 EPA 区域方面表现出不一致的模式，并且受到比较方法的强烈影响。 NATA 的预测与监测数据存在实质性不一致，因此基于 NATA 数据的环境流行病学和正义研究需要谨慎行事。