Global climate change has been one of the most serious environmental problems in the 21st century, IPCC has projected that the frequency, the strength and the duration of heat waves will continue to increase due to the impact of global climate change, considering high mortality and high morbidity of heat wave, assessment and predicting of human health risk of heat wave have been more important to make and implement proper program and policy. The present article provided a brief overview of recent progress in assessing the human health risk of heat wave against the background of climate change, the adverse impacts of human health of heat wave were briefly introduced, the researches of assessing human health risk of heat wave were summarized, finally the insufficiency and the future perspective of current researches were indicated.