Around 30,000 deaths will be linked to toxic air in the UK in 2025, according to a report from leading doctors, as they urged the government to “recognise air pollution as a key public health issue”.
The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) warned that around 99% of the population in the UK are breathing “toxic air”.
The report says there is “no safe level” of air pollutants while noting how exposure to air pollution can shorten life by 1.8 years on average.
That is “just behind some of the leading causes of death and disease worldwide”, including cancer and smoking, the authors wrote.
The college has called on the government to take action to tackle the issue, as it urged ministers to “recognise air pollution as a key public health issue”.
In the forward of the report, England’s chief medical officer, Professor Sir Chris Whitty, said: “Air pollution remains the most important environmental threat to health, with impacts throughout the life course.
“It is an area of health where the UK has made substantial progress in the last three decades with concentrations of many of the main pollutants falling rapidly, but it remains a major cause of chronic ill health as well as premature mortality.
“Further progress in outdoor air pollution will occur if we decide to make it, but will not happen without practical and achievable changes to heating, transport and industry in particular.
“Air pollution affects everybody, and is everybody’s business.”
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The report also highlights the economic impact of air pollution as it has an estimated cost of £27bn a year in healthcare costs and productivity losses.
Dr Mumtaz Patel, president of the RCP, said: “Air pollution can no longer be seen as just an environmental issue – it’s 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 wouldn’t accept 30,000 preventable deaths from any other cause. 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.”
