1) The study defined three categories of injecting drug users (IDUs) in a neighborhood in New York - a core network of 40 IDUs, an inner periphery of 95 IDUs who obtained drugs and assistance from the core, and an outer periphery who purchased drugs independently without interacting with the core. 2) Data was collected through ethnographic observation of hundreds of drug users, 210 interviews, and structured interviews with 767 IDUs where they named their injection partners. 3) Different levels of HIV risk behaviors and infection rates were found among the three network groups, with the core having the highest rates.