[Digital social networks and social participation in the Brazilian public health system (SUS): reflections about sociopolitical transformations and contemporary challenges in health].

This paper examines the emergence of a new exercise and participatory practice in health linked to the development of information and communication technologies (ICTs), especially digital social networks, based on the experiences of municipal health managers in the Greater ABC region of São Paulo. Empirical research was conducted through semi-structured interviews with managers from the cities of Diadema, Mauá, Ribeirão Pires, Santo André, and São Caetano do Sul, between September 2019 and February 2020. The analysis of the material allowed the identification of the development of a new participatory exercise within the scope of digital social networks which, being outside the institutional arenas of the State, changes the rules of the democratic game and the ways in which decision-making and health policy are conducted in the region. This new participatory exercise represents, in a reflective manner, a crisis of the original premises of the democratic issue in health, while also enabling its reinvention through other means, forms, and places.