Trend tests for the evaluation of exposure-response relationships in epidemiological exposure studies.

One possibility for the statistical evaluation of trends in epidemiological exposure studies is the use of a trend test for data organized in a 2 x k contingency table. Commonly, the exposure data are naturally grouped or continuous exposure data are appropriately categorized. The trend test should be sensitive to any shape of the exposure-response relationship. Commonly, a global trend test only determines whether there is a trend or not. Once a trend is seen it is important to identify the likely shape of the exposure-response relationship. This paper introduces a best contrast approach and an alternative approach based on order-restricted information criteria for the model selection of a particular exposure-response relationship. For the simple change point alternative H1 : pi1 = ...= piq