The county has a partial shortage area designation and a low income population designation. The distribution of age and race was skewed due to the large number of young and foreign students attending Purdue University. The unemployment rate above is a 1998 12-month average. The July 1999 unemployment rate was 1.7. The above categories are not mutually exclusive.
People frequently rotate on and off different types of insurance as life factors change.
Many of foreign students did not have insurance, and since they and their families were not US citizens, they were not eligible for public benefits such as Medicaid. 946 Injuries were the leading cause of death for Indiana residents 1-4 years of age, regardless of race. In Tippecanoe County, there were 35 unintentional injury deaths in 1997. There was 1 homicide in the county and another 17 intentional injury deaths by suicide. Twenty-two people died of Alzheimer's.