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Extreme heat exposure is linked with increased risk for premature mortality. It can cause heat stress and dehydration, worsen heart, respiratory, and kidney diseases, or even lead to heat stroke. Climate change is increasing the number of heat days and their intensity, increasing heat exposure, which may lead to an increased number of deaths attributed to heat. This indicator tracks the change in heat-related mortality in Europe during 2015-2024 compared to 1991-2000.

In each European region, the epidemiological risk between daily heat exposure and daily mortality was established, accounting for non-linear association and delayed effects of heat to mortality. Estimates of the heat-mortality relationship for each region were obtained (meta-regression analysis), which were then used to estimate the number of deaths attributed to heat in Europe.

Interpretation of results

Heat-related mortality rate increased by 52 annual deaths per million inhabitants in Europe during 2015-2024 compared to the baseline 1991-2000.

Caveats

The epidemiological fitting considered temperature and mortality data from 2015-2019, and therefore, the indicator does not account for changes in the vulnerability to heat (i.e., adaptation or maladaptation).

Date of publication:

2026

Keywords:
Excess mortality, Heat stress
Climate impacts:

Extreme heat

Adaptation Approaches:

Observations and Scenarios

Sectors:

Health

Geographic characterisation:

Europe

Health impact:

Heat

Reference information

Websites:
https://www.lancetcountdown.org/europe/
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(26)00025-3/fulltext
Source:

Publication:

Kriit H, Chen-Xu J, Semenza J et al., 2026, 'The 2026 Europe report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: narrowing window for decisive health action'. The Lancet Public Health. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(26)00025-3


Data sources:

  1. Climatic data: Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), ERA5 Land Reanalysis data.
  2. Regional population data: Eurostat
  3. Mortality data: Eurostat and National Health Agencies and statistics.

Link to repository with code: 

Ballester, J., 2024, Heat-related mortality in Europe during the summer of 2022 https://github.com/BallesterJoan/europe_summer_2022_heat/tree/main

Contributor:
Lancet Countdown in Europe

Published in Climate-ADAPT: Sep 4, 2026

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This translation is generated by eTranslation, a machine translation tool provided by the European Commission.

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This translation is generated by eTranslation, a machine translation tool provided by the European Commission.