Methods: Systematic review of the literature restricted to English language journals in Embase and MEDLINE carried out in November 2014. Results: Over a tenth of the entire global burden disease is attributed to surgical conditions, yet limited attention has been given to its role and relevance on the global health agenda. By 2025, surgical conditions will comprise more than two-thirds of the global years of life lost. Simple and cost-effective surgical procedures can avert over 11% of global

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... sability and premature death. We suggest 4 main areas of intersection between surgery and public health: 1) surgery as a public health preventative intervention; 2) population-based safe surgery system design; 3) population-based quality assessment and benchmarking; and 4) building equitable surgical capacity. Conclusion: There is a pressing need to bridge the gap between surgery and public health, not only in low and middle income countries, but also in developed nations where the quality and safety of surgery both aff5ct the health of the wider population.