Doctors warn that around 99 per cent of the population in the UK are breathing "toxic air", and around 30,000 deaths will be linked to air pollution in 2025.
The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) claimed in a report that air pollution was causing harm to almost every organ of the body, and shortening life by 1.8 years on average.
It said there is "no safe level" of air pollutants, and even exposure to low concentrations can be harmful.
The report highlighted studies providing new information about the significant health dangers of toxic air, including foetal development and risk of cancer, heart disease, stroke, mental health conditions and dementia.
The RCP noted that the threat air pollution posed to public health was greater than previously understood.
It costs £27 billion a year in healthcare costs and productivity losses, and the figure could even be higher – up to £50bn – if wider impacts such as dementia were taken into account.
The report called for action from the government to tackle the crisis and treat air pollution as a key public health issue.
In the forward of the report, England's chief medical officer, professor Chris Whitty noted that though the UK has made progress in the last three decades by reducing some pollutants, air pollution "remains a major cause of chronic ill health as well as premature mortality".
He observed that further progress in combating outdoor air pollution will not happen "without practical and achievable changes to heating, transport and industry".
"Air pollution affects everybody, and is everybody's business," he said.
RCP president Dr Mumtaz Patel noted that air pollution was no longer an environmental issue, but a public health crisis.
"We are losing tens of thousands of lives every year to something that is mostly preventable and the financial cost is a price we simply cannot afford to keep paying.
"We need to treat clean air with the same seriousness we treat clean water or safe food. It is a basic human right - and a vital investment in our economic future," she said.
