To raise awareness and focus efforts on addressing the significant noise problem, the then Ministry of Labour, now Ministry of Manpower, launched a Hearing Conservation Programme in 1976. A central part of the programme was a mobile audiometric facility. This provided a doorstep service that enabled audiometric examinations to be conducted with minimal disruption to production schedule and at nominal cost. At the same time, workers and management were advised on the effects of noise and appropriate preventive measures.

In a way, the Ministry’s mobile audiometric service was a demonstration model. By 1983, the facility was phased out as a sufficient number of clinics and factories had set up their own audiometric facilities. Over the eight years, a total of 35,605 audiometric examinations was conducted, with 1,432 NID cases detected, and the NID incidence declined from 267 per 1,000 employees screened to only 10.