Health chiefs estimate that at least 100 people in the city are admitted to hospital each year with breathing problems linked to poor air quality.
Chemicals in the air can cause breathing difficulties and chest pain, and can worsen ailments like asthma and bronchitis.
Now a French study has found that heart attacks increase when ozone levels are high - the gas is formed when sunlight reacts with fumes from cars and factories. The University of Toulouse study found that when ozone levels were high heart attacks, chest pains and heart deaths increased by 13 per cent among high risk groups, and by five per cent among the normal population.
Today Neil Parry, spokesman for the East End Quality of Life group in Sheffield, said this and other recent international studies is adding to evidence that air pollution poses serious risks to health.
He says people who live in the M1 corridor in Tinsley and Darnall are being exposed to increasing amounts of fumes as traffic volumes continue to rise.
At busy junctions in the city levels of traffic fumes can be higher than the recommended levels for air quality.
Mr Parry believes encouraging people to use their cars less would make a significant difference in cutting the levels of fumes.
"We need to do something - get people out of the cars," said Mr Parry. "There needs to be a big effort on people's heath. It's something we cannot ignore.
"If people walked or used the bus for short journeys then it would be better. When the kids are off school, it makes a big difference to the volume of traffic, it's about 10 per cent less."
Mr Parry claims pollution levels in the city would drop if each person cut out just two car journeys a week. Drivers as well as pedestrians are at risk because they are too breathing in fumes while sitting in their vehicles.
He said people who live in deprived areas suffer more from breathing in fumes than those who live in better-off areas as their health is worse to start with.
John Soady, from Sheffield West Primary Care Trust, said links between heart attacks and exposure to traffic fumes are difficult to prove in a place like Sheffield.