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Social network testing data come from uConnect, a longitudinal study of young Black men who have sex with men (YMSM) ages 16 to 29 who reside in Chicago [16, 17, 18, 19]. Data were from the baseline visit, collected June 2013‐July 2014. RDS was used for recruitment. Index cases were selected from a distribution of social spaces that YMSM occupy (both physical and virtual spaces) and identified during focus groups. Respondents were required to: self‐identify as African‐American/Black, be born male, be 16 to 29 years of age, report oral or anal sex with a male within the past 24 months, and have a primary residence in South Chicago. Respondents were given up to six vouchers to recruit social network members who met the same criteria, $60 for the baseline interview and $20 for each enrolled social network member. HIV infection was determined by three assays applied to samples eluted from dry blood spots: ARCHITECT HIV Ag/Ab Combo; Multispot HIV‐1/HIV‐2 Bio‐Rad and Realtime HIV‐1 RNA, Abbot. Costs associated with viral load testing were excluded.
The Institutional Review Board at the University of Chicago and the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago approved all procedures.

All participants were tested for HIV by rapid test‐kit Immuno chromatographic assay to diagnose HIV Type 1 and Type 2 and subtype 0/CITO TEST HIV 1/2/0. Dry blood spot specimens were collected from all participants who had HIV‐positive rapid test results; these specimens were tested in Atlanta by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by two third generation HIV diagnostic ELISAs to confirm the presence of HIV antibodies (Abbott ARCHITECT HIV Ag/Ab Combo and Bio‐Rad Genscreen Ag/Ab HIV Ultra). Samples that tested reactive on both ELISAs were confirmed for HIV seropositivity using Western blot (Inno‐lia HIV‐1/2 Score, Innogenetics, Belgium).