Operation Change
Transforming lives through advocacy and behavioral change to bridge the gap in chronic disease management and musculoskeletal health.
Reach
2,600+ Lives
Communities
Multiple Cities across the U.S.
Who It Serves
Women 40 and older
Cost
Free
What is Operation Change?
Operation Change (OC) is a FREE community-based behavioral change program that improves mobility, reduces joint pain, and enhances quality of life for women 40 and older. Operation Change combines evidence-based education, culturally responsive physical activity, and peer-led support, and has been successfully implemented in urban, suburban, and rural communities across the United States.
We’re proud to share that Operation Change has touched the lives of thousands of women across the country.
- Program Objectives
How We Move
Operation Change helps women build the knowledge, confidence, skills, and support to make meaningful, sustainable changes in their health and everyday lives.
Participants Learn:
- Define the importance of movement as medicine for joint pain.
- Describe how movement helps with managing chronic disease.
- Learn how to mobilize your community.
- Improve and sustain behavior change by applying Motivational Interviewing skills
For more than a decade, Operation Change has reached thousands of women in communities across the country—each with her own story, goals, challenges, and reason to move.
Operation Change Reaches Communities Across the U.S.
Each Operation Change team is local to the community in which the program is implemented.
Choose your city to learn more! Not listed? Reach out and let’s get moving!
What We Do
Operation Change is a community-based program that brings women together for 12 weeks of movement, health education, behavior change, and peer support.
Participants learn from healthcare professionals and community leaders, experience movement that can be adapted to different abilities, explore strategies for healthier living, and create personal goals that fit their lives.
But Operation Change is about more than what happens during a weekly session. Women build relationships, ask questions, share experiences, celebrate progress, and encourage one another along the way.
The goal isn’t perfection. It’s progress—and recognizing that one small step can change everything.
Who We Work With
Operation Change serves women who may be experiencing joint pain, mobility challenges, chronic health conditions, or other barriers that make staying active and prioritizing their health more difficult.
One of the program’s greatest strengths is that it is rooted in community.
Operation Change is built with communities, not simply delivered to them.
Local Program Directors and Motivational Interviewers bring community knowledge, lived experience, and trusted relationships to the program. Together with healthcare professionals and community partners, they create a welcoming environment where women can learn, move, connect, and support one another.
Why it Works
Knowing what to do and being able to make it part of everyday life are two very different things.
Operation Change combines health education with movement, motivational interviewing, goal setting, social connection, and ongoing encouragement to help women turn knowledge into meaningful action.
We also recognize that every woman’s journey is different. Progress might mean moving a little more, feeling stronger, better managing a chronic condition, asking more questions about her healthcare, making a healthier choice, reconnecting with others, or simply believing that change is possible.
Over time, those individual steps can become healthier habits, greater confidence, stronger connections, and lasting change.
Operation Change’s community-based approach has also been studied and published in peer-reviewed research, providing evidence of the program’s potential to support behavior change and improve health.
Breaking the Movement Disruption Cycle
Increases awareness of risk associated w/limited mobility due to joint pain
Increases physical activity in participants
Provides knowledge to support behavior change
Addresses the social determinants of health, which impact chronic conditions and quality of life
- Peer-Reviewed Evidence
Operation Change is making a proven impact
A published study examined the implementation and efficacy of the program: “Operation Change: A New Paradigm Addressing Behavior Change and Musculoskeletal Health Disparities.”
- Community Voices
Hear from the communities we serve
Rural America
Partnering With Faith-Based Organizations
Start Moving, Start Living Trailer (Spanish)
Partner With Operation Change
Bring the power of Operation Change to your community.
Operation Change grows through partnerships with healthcare organizations, community-based organizations, local leaders, funders, and others who believe women deserve meaningful opportunities to improve their health, mobility, and quality of life.
Our partners help create trusted spaces where women can learn, move, connect, and build healthier habits with the support of people who understand their communities.
Whether you’re interested in bringing Operation Change to your community, becoming a referral or healthcare partner, supporting a local program, or helping us expand to new communities, we’d love to explore what’s possible together.
Together, we can help more women take that first step—and keep moving forward.