Estimating the impact of heat waves on human mortality is key when it comes to the design of effective climate change adaptation measures. As the usual approach-relying on detailed health data in form of hospital records-is not feasible for many countries, a different methodology is needed. This work presents such an approach. Based on singular spectrum analysis and using monthly mortality rates-partly ranging back to 1960-it derives excess mortality estimates for 27 European countries. Excess mortality is then regressed against a heat wave measure in order to assess the health impacts of extreme heat. The analysis demonstrates that many European countries are severely affected by heat waves: On average, 0.61%-and up to 1.14% in case of Portugal-of all deaths are caused by extreme heat events. This finding confirms the understanding that climate change is a major environmental risk to public health: In the 27 examined European countries, over 28,000 people die every year due to exposure to extreme heat.