ID and Testing Via Friendship Networks

The proposed pilot study will utilize a cross-sectional research design to recruit Hispanic/Latina and African American young women to undergo HIV screening. The research design will consist of a friendship-based, female network recruitment approach that incorporates a dual method of incentives for index recruiters and network members as a strategy for identifying new HIV infections in the target population. Among sexually experienced young women (many of whom who reside in communities with a high prevalence of STIs and HIV), 50 who self-identify as HIV positive, 50 who self-identify as HIV negative (based on receiving a negative HIV test within 12 months prior to study consent), and 50 whose HIV status is self-reported as unknown (who have no history of prior HIV testing or who had HIV screening more than 12 months prior to date of study consent) will be recruited. These women will serve as index recruiters to recruit two or more (on average four) female friendship network members to undergo HIV screening. The index recruiters will be recruited through three participating ATN sites utilizing the existing infrastructure within the AMTUs and their community and clinical partnerships. Index participants that agree to take part in this research will be asked to self-disclose their HIV status, to complete a risk assessment and indicate their willingness to recruit their close female friends to undergo HIV screening. In addition, index recruiters who self-identify as HIV negative and those who do not know their HIV status will be invited to undergo HIV screening. Index recruiters will be given up to four months to recruit members of their friendship network. At the end of this recruitment period or after successful recruitment of two or more friendship network members, whichever comes first, all index recruiters will be asked to complete a brief questionnaire that describes factors that both facilitated and hindered their ability to recruit the friendship network members. Sexually experienced friendship network members who agree to participate in the study will also complete a risk assessment regardless of whether or not they agree to undergo HIV screening. Participation in this study will be strictly on a voluntary basis.