Natural mentoring as an effective public health intervention to promote positive adolescent development among adolescents: A Review Paper

The following literature review is a review of natural mentoring in the United States, and its association with numerous adolescent developmental outcomes. Natural or informal mentoring relationships are relationships in which mentors and mentees are connected through pre-existing social networks and communities. The role of natural mentoring is a relatively new area of research, and a variety of scholars have conducted studies to investigate the effects natural mentoring has on adolescents' academic, emotional, psychological, and health outcomes. The following literature review presents a review of 20 articles with a focus on natural mentoring among adolescents, and demonstrates the association between natural mentoring and academic and psycho-emotional health outcomes. The review concludes with implications for the field of public health.Master of Public Healt