Tukey's trend test

Tukey's trend test (or the Tukey-Ciminera-Heyse trend test) is a non-parametric or semi-parametric statistical hypothesis test used to detect a dose–response relationship between a discrete independent variable (such as dosage level) and a continuous dependent variable.

First proposed by John Tukey, Joseph Ciminera, and John Heyse in 1985, the test was developed to address the limitations of simple linear regression when the exact functional form of the dose-response curve is unknown. It is frequently applied in toxicology and pharmacology to determine if increasing exposure to a substance correlates with a monotonic increase or decrease in a biological response.