ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - There is not a day that passes that Cassandra Josey does not think of her son.

"He was 17. 'I'm just going to steal a car. We're going to joyride,'" she said.

She said that mistake cost him his freedom.

"I felt robbed, I felt ashamed. I thought, like, 'Not my child,'" said Josey.

It also cost her peace of mind.

"Not being able to talk to him ... you only get one minute or two and you can hear the distress in his voice," she said.

Her story is one like many moms and other Black women across America who have sons or other loved ones who are incarcerated.

"He got into some trouble, and he was sentenced to 15 years in prison on a first-offense aggravated assault charge," Tiffany Smith said of her son.

Smith worries about her son's well-being. Both women are choosing not to share their sons' names for safety concerns.

"I'm hoping that we get an opportunity to have his case looked at again," said Smith.

This stress is constant, a reason Emory University spearheaded a study to see how one's incarceration could impact a family member's health.

"As we age, biologically our arteries naturally deteriorate," said Nicole Fields, who at the time of the study was a postdoctoral fellow at Emory's Rollins School of Public Health.

She decided to help study the heart and determine if this constant stress is accelerating heart disease among Black women in particular for this study.

"I'm really interested in looking at structural factors and how they influence heart disease, diabetes, for example, of Black women in particular," said Fields.

Out of the study group, nearly half had loved ones who were locked up. What they found was startling.

"Women who did have a loved one incarcerated had a higher blood pressure in the aorta," said Fields.

This gave Smith a new outlook on her life.

"It affected my physical being. I didn't relate it to that until then," said Smith.

The concern is that higher blood pressure could lead to cardiovascular disease.

"We do need more research to really understand, is it incarceration that leads to changes in these measures for heart diseases? But I think it's important that we're looking at a societal level, a structural level event that unfortunately impacts so many Black women in this country," said Fields.

"We carry invisible capes that we really have to learn how to take off sometimes," said Josey.